UBRARY 

UNIVE'  S  TY  OP 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  oiteo 


THE  WRITINGS   OF 

OLIVER   WENDELL    HOLMES 

• 

IN   THIRTEEN  VOLUMES 
VOLUME   IV. 

9 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS 


OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 


BOSTON    AND   NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  M1FFLIN   AND   COMPANY 
W)t  fifoeratde  $r? 

M  DCCC  XCIV 


Copyright,  1890  and  1891, 
BY  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES. 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Rivtrtide  Preu,  Cambridge,  Mats.,  U.  8.  A. 
Hectrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Hougbton  &  Co. 


THE  Teapot  represented  above  seems  entitled  to 
special  mention.  Its  inscription  shows  it  to  be  the 
gift  of  pupils  to  their  Instructor,  in  the  year  1738. 
The  pupils  were  students  of  Harvard  College  ;  the 
Instructor  was  Henry  Flynt,  Fellow  and  Tutor  from 
1699  to  1754.  The  three  nodules  of  flint  on  the 
escutcheon  belong  to  what  are  called  in  heraldry 
"  canting  arms." 

Henry  Flynt  was  a  bachelor.  The  Teapot  passed  by 
descent  to  his  niece  Dorothy  (Quincy)  Jackson,  from 
her  to  her  daughter  Mary  (Jackson)  Wendell,  then 
to  her  daughter  Sarah  (Wendell)  Holmes,  and  from 
her  to  her  son,  the  present  owner, 

O.  W.  H. 


PREFACE. 


THE  kind  way  in  which  this  series  of  papers  has 
been  received  has  been  a  pleasure  greater  than  I 
dared  to  anticipate.  I  felt  that  I  was  a  late  comer  in 
the  midst  of  a  crowd  of  ardent  and  eager  candidates 
for  public  attention,  that  I  had  already  had  my  day, 
and  that  if,  like  the  unfortunate  Frenchman  we  used 
to  read  about,  I  had  "  come  again,"  I  ought  not  to 
be  surprised  if  I  received  the  welcome  of  "  Monsieur 
Tonson." 

It  has  not  proved  so.  My  old  readers  have  come 
forward  in  the  pleasantest  possible  way  and  assured 
me  that  they  were  glad  to  see  me  again.  There  is  no 
need,  therefore,  of  apologies  or  explanations.  I  thought 
I  had  something  left  to  say  and  I  have  found  listeners. 
In  writing  these  papers  I  have  had  occupation  and 
kept  myself  in  relation  with  my  fellow-beings.  New 
sympathies,  new  sources  of  encouragement,  if  not  of 
inspiration,  have  opened  themselves  before  me  and 
cheated  the  least  promising  season  of  life  of  much 
that  seemed  to  render  it  dreary  and  depressing.  What 
has  particularly  pleased  me  has  been  the  freedom  of 
the  criticisms  which  I  have  seen  from  disadvantageous 
comparisons  of  my  later  with  my  earlier  writings. 

I  should  like  a  little  rest  from  literary  work  before 
the  requiescat  ensures  my  repose  from  earthly  labors, 


li  PREFACE. 

but  I  will  not  be  rash  enough  to  promise  that  I  will 
not  even  once  again  greet  my  old  and  new  readers  if 
the  impulse  becomes  irresistible  to  renew  a  compan- 
ionship which  has  been  to  me  such  a  source  of  hap- 
piness. 

0.  W.  H. 
BEVERLY  FARMS,  MASS.,  August,  1891. 


OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 
I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

THIS  series  of  papers  was  begun  in  March,  1888. 
A  single  number  was  printed,  when  it  was  interrupted 
by  the  course  of  events,  and  not  resumed  until  nearly 
two  years  later,  in  January,  1890.  The  plan  of  the 
series  was  not  formed  in  my  mind  when  I  wrote  the 
first  number.  In  returning  to  my  task  I  found  that 
my  original  plan  had  shaped  itself  in  the  underground 
laboratory  of  my  thought  so  that  some  changes  had 
to  be  made  in  what  I  had  written.  As  I  proceeded, 
the  slight  story  which  formed  a  part  of  my  programme 
developed  itself  without  any  need  of  much  contrivance 
on  my  part.  Given  certain  characters  in  a  writer's 
conception,  if  they  are  real  to  him,  as  they  ought  to 
be,  they  will  act  in  such  or  such  a  way,  according  to 
the  law  of  their  nature.  It  was  pretty  safe-  to  assume 
that  intimate  relations  would  spring  up  between  some 
members  of  our  mixed  company ;  and  it  was  not  rash 
to  conjecture  that  some  of  these  intimacies  might  end 
in  such  attachment  as  would  furnish  us  hints,  at  least, 
of  a  love-story. 

As  to  the  course  of  the  conversations  which  would 
take  place,  very  little  could  be  guessed  beforehand. 


6  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

Various  subjects  of  interest  would  be  likely  to  present 
themselves,  without  definite  order,  oftentimes  abruptly 
and,  as  it  would  seem,  capriciously.  Conversation  in 
such  a  mixed  company  as  that  of  "  The  Teacups  "  is 
likely  to  be  suggestive  rather  than  exhaustive.  Con- 
tinuous discourse  is  better  adapted  to  the  lecture-room 
than  to  the  tea-table.  There  is  quite  enough  of  it,  — 
I  fear  too  much,  —  in _these  pages.  But  the  reader 
must  take  the  reports  of  our  talks  as  they  were  jotted 
"  down.  A  patchwork  quilt  is  not  like  a  piece  of  Gobe- 
lin tapestry ;  but  it  has  its  place  and  its  use. 

Some  will  feel  a  temptation  to  compare  these  con- 
versations with  those  earlier  ones,  and  remark  unami- 
ably  upon  their  difference.  This  is  hardly  fair,  and 
is  certainly  not  wise.  They  are  produced  under  very 
different  conditions,  and  betray  that  fact  in  every  line. 
It  is  better  to  take  them  by  themselves ;  and,  if  my 
reader  finds  anything  to  please  or  profit  from,  I  shall 
be  contented,  and  he,  I  feel  sure,  will  not  be  ungrate- 
ful. 

The  readers  who  take  up  this  volume  may  recollect 
a  series  of  conversations  held  many  years  ago  over  the 
breakfast-table,  and  reported  for  their  more  or  less 
profitable  entertainment.  Those  were  not  very  early 
breakfasts  at  which  the  talks  took  place,  but  at  any 
rate  the  sun  was  rising,  and  the  guests  had  not  as  yet 
tired  themselves  with  the  labors  of  the  day.  The 
morning  cup  of  coffee  has  an  exhilaration  about  it 
which  the  cheering  influence  of  the  afternoon  or  even- 
ing cup  of  tea  cannot  be  expected  to  reproduce.  The 
toils  of  the  forenoon,  the  heats  of  midday,  in  the  warm 
season,  the  slanting  light  of  the  descending  sun,  or 
the  sobered  translucency  of  twilight  have  subdued  the 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  7 

vivacity  of  the  early  day.  Yet  under  the  influence  of 
the  benign  stimulant  many  trains  of  thought  which 
will  bear  recalling,  may  suggest  themselves  to  some  of 
our  quiet  circle  and  prove  not  uninteresting  to  a  cer- 
tain number  of  readers. 

How  early  many  of  my  old  breakfast  companions 
went  off  to  bed  !  I  am  thinking  not  merely  of  those 
who  sat  round  our  table,  but  of  that  larger  company 
of  friends  who  listened  to  our  conversations  as  re- 
ported. Dear  girl  with  the  silken  ringlets,  dear  boy 
with  the  down-shadowed  cheek,  your  grandfather, 
your  grandmother,  turned  over  the  freshly  printed 
leaves  that  told  the  story  of  those  earlier  meetings 
around  the  plain  board  where  so  many  things  were 
said  and  sung,  not  all  of  which  have  quite  faded  from 
the  memory  of  this  overburdened  and  forgetful  time. 
Your  father,  your  mother,  found  the  scattered  leaves 
gathered  in  a  volume,  and  smiled  upon  them  as  not 
uncompanionable  acquaintances.  My  tea-table  makes 
no  promises.  There  is  no  programme  of  exercises  to 
be  studied  beforehand.  What  if  I  should  content 
myself  with  a  single  report  of  what  was  said  and  done 
over  our  teacups  ?  Perhaps  my  young  reader  would 
be  glad  to  let  me  off,  for  there  are  talkers  enough 
who  have  not  yet  left  their  breakfast-tables ;  and  no- 
body can  blame  the  young  people  for  preferring  the 
thoughts  and  the  language  of  their  own  generation, 
with  all  its  future  before  it,  to  those  of  their  grand- 
fathers' contemporaries. 

My  reader,  young  or  old,  will  please  to  observe  that 
I  have  left  myself  entire  freedom  as  to  the  sources  of 
what  may  be  said  over  the  teacups.  I  have  not  told 
how  many  cups  are  commonly  on  the  board,  but  by 
using  the  plural  I  have  implied  that  there  is  at  least 


8  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

one  other  talker  or  listener  beside  myself,  and  for  all 
that  appears  there  may  be  a  dozen.  There  will  be  no 
regulation  length  to  my  reports,  —  no  attempt  to 
make  out  a  certain  number  of  pages.  I  have  no  con- 
tract to  fill  so  many  columns,  no  pledge  to  contribute 
so  many  numbers.  I  can  stop  on  this  first  page  if  I 
do  not  care  to  say  anything  more,  and  let  this  article 
stand  by  itself  if  so  minded.  What  a  sense  of  free- 
dom it  gives  not  to  write  by  the  yard  or  the  column ! 
*  When  one  writes  for  an  English  review  or  maga- 
zine at  so  many  guineas  a  sheet,  the  temptation  is  very 
great  to  make  one's  contribution  cover  as  many  sheets 
as  possible.  We  all  know  the  metallic  taste  of  arti- 
cles written  under  this  powerful  stimulus.  If  Bacon's 
Essays  had  been  furnished  by  a  modern  hand  to  the 
"  Quarterly  Review"  at  fifty  guineas  a  sheet,  what  a 
great  book  it  would  have  taken  to  hold  them  ! 

The  first  thing  which  suggests  itself  to  me,  as  I  con- 
template my  slight  project,  is  the  liability  of  repeating 
in  the  evening  what  I  may  have  said  in  the  morning 
in  one  form  or  another,  and  printed  in  these  or  other 
pages.  When  it  suddenly  flashes  into  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  writer  who  has  been  long  before  the  public, 
"  Why,  I  have  said  all  that  once  or  oftener  in  my 
books  or  essays,  and  here  it  is  again,  the  same  old 
thought,  the  same  old  image,  the  same  old  story !  "  it 
irritates  him,  and  is  likely  to  stir  up  the  monosyllables 
of  his  unsanctified  vocabulary.  He  sees  in  imagina- 
tion a  thousand  readers,  smiling  or  yawning  as  they 
say  to  themselves,  "  We  have  had  all  that  before," 
and  turn  to  another  writer's  performance  for  some- 
thing not  quite  so  stale  and  superfluous.  This  is  what 
the  writer  says  to  himself  about  the  reader. 

The  idiot !     Does  the  simpleton  really  think  that 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  9 

everybody  has  read  all  lie  has  written  ?  Does  he 
really  believe  that  everybody  remembers  all  of  his, 
the  writer's,  words  he  may  happen  to  have  read  ?  At 
one  of  those  famous  dinners  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
Society,  where  no  reporter  was  ever  admitted,  and 
from  which  nothing  ever  leaks  out  about  what  is  said 
and  done,  Mr.  Edward  Everett,  in  his  after-dinner 
speech,  quoted  these  lines  from  the  JEneid,  giving  a 
very  liberal  English  version  of  them,  which  he  applied 
to  the  Oration  just  delivered  by  Mr.  Emerson  :  — 

Tres  imbris  torti  radios,  tres  nubis  aquosae 
Addiderant,  rutili  tres  ignis,  et  alitis  Austri. 

His  nephew,  the  ingenious,  inventive,  and  inexhausti- 
ble Dr.  Edward  Everett  Hale,  tells  the  story  of  this 
quotation,  and  of  the  various  uses  to  which  it  might 
be  applied  in  after-dinner  speeches.  How  often  he 
ventured  to  repeat  it  at  the  Phi  Beta. Kappa  dinners 
I  am  not  sure  ;  but  as  he  reproduced  it  with  his  lively 
embellishments  and  fresh  versions  and  artful  circum- 
locutions, not  one  person  in  ten  remembered  that  he 
had  listened  to  those  same  words  in  those  same  ac- 
cents only  a  twelvemonth  ago.  The  poor  deluded 
creatures  who  take  it  for  granted  that  all  the  world 
remembers  what  they  have  said,  and  laugh  at  them 
when  they  say  it  over  again,  may  profit  by  this  recol- 
lection. But  what  if  one  does  say  the  same  things,  — 
of  course  in  a  little  different  form  each  time,  —  over 
and  over  ?  If  he  has  anything  to  say  worth  saying, 
that  is  just  what  he  ought  to  do.  Whether  he  ought 
to  or  not,  it  is  very  certain  that  this  is  what  all  whc 
write  much  or  speak  much  necessarily  must  and  will 
do.  Think  of  the  clergyman  who  preaches  fifty  or  a 
hundred  or  more  sermons  every  year  for  fifty  years ! 
Think  of  the  stump  speaker  who  shouts  before  a  hun- 


10  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

dred  audiences  during  the  same  political  campaign, 
always  using  the  same  arguments,  illustrations,  and 
catchwords !  Think  of  the  editor,  as  Carlyle  has  pic- 
tured him,  threshing  the  same  straw  every  morning, 
until  we  know  what  is  coming  when  we  see  the  first 
line,  as  we  do  when  we  read  the  large  capitals  at  the 
head  of  a  thrilling  story,  which  ends  in  an  advertise- 
ment of  an  all-cleansing  soap  or  an  all-curing  remedy ! 

The  latch-key  which  opens  into  the  inner  chambers 
of  my  consciousness  fits,  as  I  have  sufficient  reason  to 
believe,  the  private  apartments  of  a  good  many  other 
people's  thoughts.  The  longer  we  live,  the  more  we 
find  we  are  like  other  persons.  When  I  meet  with 
any  facts  in  my  own  mental  experience,  I  feel  almost 
sure  that  I  shall  find  them  repeated  or  anticipated  in 
the  writings  or  the  conversation  of  others.  This  feel- 
ing gives  one  a  freedom  in  telling  his  own  personal 
history  he  could  not  have  enjoyed  without  it.  My 
story  belongs  to  you  as  much  as  to  me.  De  tefabula 
narratur.  Change  the  personal  pronoun,  —  that  is 
all.  It  gives  many  readers  a  singular  pleasure  to  find 
a  writer  telling  them  something  they  have  long  known 
or  felt,  but  which  they  have  never  before  found  any 
one  to  put  in  words  for  them.  An  author  does  not 
always  know  when  he  is  doing  the  service  of  the  angel 
who  stirred  the  waters  of  the  pool  of  Bethesda.  Many 
a  reader  is  delighted  to  find  his  solitary  thought  has  a 
companion,  and  is  grateful  to  the  benefactor  who  has 
strengthened  him.  This  is  the  advantage  of  the  hum- 
ble reader  over  the  ambitious  and  self-worshipping 
writer.  It  is  not  with  him  pereant  illi,  but  beati  sunt 
illi  qui  pro  nobis  nostra  dixerunt,  —  Blessed  are  those 
who  have  said  our  good  things  for  us. 

What  I  have  been  saying  of  repetitions  leads  me 


OVER   THE  TEACUPS.  11 

into  a  train  of  reflections  like  which  I  think  many 
readers  will  find  something  in  their  own  mental  his- 
tory. The  area  of  consciousness  is  covered  by  layers 
of  habitual  thoughts,  as  a  sea-beach  is  covered  with 
wave-worn,  rounded  pebbles,  shaped,  smoothed,  and 
polished  by  long  attrition  against  each  other.  These 
thoughts  remain  very  much  the  same  from  day  to  day, 
even  from  week  to  week ;  and  as  we  grow  older,  from 
month  to  month,  and  from  year  to  year.  The  tides  of 
wakening  consciousness  roll  in  upon  them  daily  as  we 
unclose  our  eyelids,  and  keep  up  the  gentle  movement 
and  murmur  of  ordinary  mental  respiration  until  we 
close  them  again  in  slumber.  When  we  think  we  are 
thinking,  we  are  for  the  most  part  only  listening  to 
the  sound  of  attrition  between  these  inert  elements  of 
our  intelligence.  They  shift  their  places  a  little,  they 
change  their  relations  to  each  other,  they  roll  over  and 
turn  up  new  surfaces.  Now  and  then  a  new  fragment 
is  cast  in  among  them,  to  be  worn  and  rounded  and 
take  its  place  with  the  others,  but  the  pebbled  floor  of 
consciousness  is  almost  as  stationary  as  the  pavement 
of  a  city  thoroughfare. 

It  so  happens  that  at  this  particular  time  I  have 
something  to  tell  which  I  am  quite  sure  is  not  one  of 
the  rolled  pebbles  which  my  reader  has  seen  before  in 
any  of  my  pages,  or,  as  I  feel  confident,  in  those  of 
any  other  writer. 

If  my  reader  asks  why  I  do  not  send  the  statement 
I  am  going  to  make  to  some  one  of  the  special  peri- 
odicals that  deal  with  such  subjects,  my  answer  is, 
that  I  like  to  tell  my  own  stories  at  my  own  time,  in 
my  own  chosen  columns,  where  they  will  be  read  by  a 
class  of  readers  with  whom  I  like  to  talk. 

All  men  of  letters  or  of  science,  all  writers  well 


12  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

known  to  the  public,  are  constantly  tampered  with,  in 
these  days,  by  a  class  of  predaceous  and  hungry  fel- 
low-laborers who  may  be  collectively  spoken  of  as  the 
brain-tappers.  They  want  an  author's  ideas  on  the 
subjects  which  interest  them,  the  inquirers,  from  the 
gravest  religious  and  moral  questions  to  the  most 
trivial  matters  of  his  habits  and  his  whims  and  fan- 
cies. Some  of  their  questions  he  cannot  answer; 
some  he  does  not  choose  to  answer ;  some  he  is  not  yet 
.ready  to  answer,  and  when  he  is  ready  he  prefers  to 
select  his  own  organ  of  publication.  I  do  not  find 
fault  with  all  the  brain-tappers.  Some  of  them  are 
doing  excellent  service  by  accumulating  facts  which 
could  not  otherwise  be  attained.  But  one  gets  tired 
of  the  strings  of  questions  sent  him,  to  which  he  is 
expected  to  return  an  answer,  plucked,  ripe  or  un- 
ripe, from  his  private  tree  of  knowledge.  The  brain- 
tappers  are  like  the  owner  of  the  goose  that  laid  the 
golden  eggs.  They  would  have  the  embryos  and 
germs  of  one's  thoughts  out  of  the  mental  oviducts, 
and  cannot  wait  for  their  spontaneous  evolution  and 
extrusion. 

The  story  I  have  promised  is,  on  the  whole,  the 
most  remarkable  of  a  series  which  I  may  have  told  in 
part  at  some  previous  date,  but  which,  if  I  have  not 
told,  may  be  worth  recalling  at  a  future  time. 

Some  few  of  my  readers  may  remember  that  in  a 
former  paper  I  suggested  the  possibility  of  the  ex- 
istence of  an  idiotic  area  in  the  human  mind,  corre- 
sponding to  the  blind  spot  in  the  human  retina.  I 
trust  that  I  shall  not  be  thought  to  have  let  my  wits 
go  wandering  in  that  region  of  my  own  intellectual 
domain,  when  I  relate  a  singular  coincidence  which 
very  lately  occurred  in  my  experience,  and  add  a  few 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  13 

remarks  made  by  one  of  our  company  on  the  delicate 
and  difficult  but  fascinating  subject  which  it  forces 
upon  our  attention.  I  will  first  copy  the  memorandum 
made  at  the  time :  — 

"  Remarkable  coincidence.    On  Monday,  April  18th, 

being  at  table  from  6.30  p.  M.  to  7.30,  with and 

[the  two  ladies  of  my  household],  I  told  them  of 

the  case  of  '  trial  by  battel '  offered  by  Abraham 
Thornton  in  1817.  I  mentioned  his  throwing  down 
his  glove,  which  was  not  taken  up  by  the  brother  of 
his  victim,  and  so  he  had  to  be  let  off,  for  the  old  law 
was  still  in  force.  I  mentioned  that  Abraham  Thorn- 
ton was  said  to  have  come  to  this  country,  4  and  [I 
added]  he  may  be  living  near  us,  for  aught  that  1 
know.'  I  rose  from  the  table,  and  found  an  English 
letter  waiting  for  me,  left  while  I  sat  at  dinner.  I 
copy  the  first  portion  of  this  letter :  — 

'  20  ALFRED  PLACE,  West  (near  Museum); 
South  Kensington,  LONDON,  S.  W. 
April  7,  1887. 

DR.  O.  W.  HOLMES: 

DEAR  SIR,  —  In  travelling,  the  other  day,  I  met 
with  a  reprint  of  the  very  interesting  case  of  Thorn- 
ton for  murder,  1817.  The  prisoner  pleaded  success- 
fully the  old  Wager  of  Battel.  I  thought  you  would 
like  to  read  the  account,  and  send  it  with  this.  <  .  . 
Yours  faithfully, 

FRED.  RATHBONE.'" 

Mr.  Rathbone  is  a  well-known  dealer  in  old  Wedg- 
wood and  eighteenth-century  art.  As  a  friend  of  my 
hospitable  entertainer,  Mr.  Willett,  he  had  shown  me 
many  attentions  in  England,  but  I  was  not  expecting 
any  communication  from  him ;  and  when,  fresh  from 


14  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

my  conversation,  I  found  this  letter  just  arrived  by 
mail,  and  left  while  I  was  at  table,  and  on  breaking 
the  seal  read  what  I  had  a  few  moments  before  been 
telling,  I  was  greatly  surprised,  and  immediately  made 
a  note  of  the  occurrence,  as  given  above. 

I  had  long  been  familiar  with  all  the  details  of  this 
celebrated  case,  but  had  not  referred  to  it,  so  far  as  I 
can  remember,  for  months  or  years.  I  know  of  no 
train  of  thought  which  led  me  to  speak  of  it  on  that 
particular  day.  I  had  never  alluded  to  it  before  in 
that  company,  nor  had  I  ever  spoken  of  it  with  Mr. 
Rathbone. 

I  told  this  story  over  our  teacups.  Among  the 
company  at  the  table  is  a  young  English  girl.  She 
seemed  to  be  amused  by  the  story.  "  Fancy ! "  she 
said,  —  "  how  very  very  odd !  "  "  It  was  a  striking 
and  curious  coincidence,"  said  the  professor  who  was 
with  us  at  the  table.  "  As  remarkable  as  two  tea- 
spoons in  one  saucer,"  was  the  comment  of  a  college 
youth  who  happened  to  be  one  of  the  company.  But 
the  member  of  our  circle  whom  the  reader  will  here- 
after know  as  Number  Seven,  began  stirring  his  tea  in 
a  nervous  sort  of  way,  and  I  knew  that  he  was  getting 
ready  to  say  something  about  the  case.  An  ingenious 
man  he  is,  with  a  brain  like  a  tinder-box,  its  contents 
catching  at  any  spark  that  is  flying  about.  I  always 
like  to  hear  what  he  says  when  his  tinder  brain  has  a 
spark  fall  into  it.  It  does  not  follow  that  because  he 
is  often  wrong  he  may  not  sometimes  be  right,  for  he 
is  no  fool.  He  treated  my  narrative  very  seriously. 

The  reader  need  not  be  startled  at  the  new  terms 
he  introduces.  Indeed,  I  am  not  quite  sure  that  some 
thinking  people  will  not  adopt  his  view  of  the  matter, 
which  seems  to  have  a  degree  of  plausibility  as  he 
states  and  illustrates  it. 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  15 

"  The  impulse  which  led  you  to  tell  that  story  passed 
directly  from  the  letter,  which  came  charged  from  the 
cells  of  the  cerebral  battery  of  your  correspondent. 
The  distance  at  which  the  action  took  place  [the  let- 
ter was  left  on  a  shelf  twenty-four  feet  from  the  place 
where  I  was  sitting]  shows  this  charge  to  have  beer 
of  notable  intensity. 

"  Brain  action  through  space  without  material  sym- 
bolism, such  as  speech,  expression,  etc.,  is  analogous 
to  electrical  induction.  Charge  the  prime  conductor 
of  an  electrical  machine,  and  a  gold-leaf  electrometer, 
far  off  from  it,  will  at  once  be  disturbed.  Electricity, 
as  we  all  know,  can  be  stored  and  transported  as  if  it 
were  a  measurable  fluid. 

"  Your  incident  is  a  typical  example  of  cerebral  irir 
duction  from  a  source  containing  stored  cerebricity. 
I  use  this  word,  not  to  be  found  in  my  dictionaries,  as 
expressing  the  brain-cell  power  corresponding  to  elec- 
tricity. Think  how  long  it  was  before  we  had  at- 
tained any  real  conception  of  the  laws  that  govern  the 
wonderful  agent,  which  now  works  in  harness  with  the 
other  trained  and  subdued  forces !  It  is  natural  that 
cerebricity  should  be  the  last  of  the  unweighable 
agencies  to  be  understood.  The  human  eye  had  seen 
heaven  and  earth  and  all  that  in  them  is  before  it  saw 
itself  as  our  instruments  enable  us  to  see  it.  This 
fact  of  yours,  which  seems  so  strange  to  you,  belongs 
to  a  great  series  of  similar  facts  familiarly  known  now 
to  many  persons,  and  before  long  to  be  recognized  as 
generally  as  those  relating  to  the  electric  telegraph 
and  the  slaving  '  dynamo.' 

"  What !  you  cannot  conceive  of  a  charge  of  cere- 
bricity fastening  itself  on  a  letter-sheet  and  clinging 
to  it  for  weeks,  while  it  was  shuffling  about  in  mail- 


16  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

bags,  rolling  over  the  ocean,  and  shaken  up  in  railroad 
cars?  And  yet  the  odor  of  a  grain  of  musk  will 
hang  round  a  note  or  a  dress  for  a  lifetime.  Do  you 
not  remember  what  Professor  Sillirnan  says,  in  that 
pleasant  journal  of  his,  about  the  little  ebony  cabinet 
which  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  brought  with  her  from 
France,  —  how  '  its  drawers  still  exhale  the  sweetest 
perfumes '  ?  If  they  could  hold  their  sweetness  for 
more  than  two  hundred  years,  why  should  not  a  writ- 
ten page  retain  for  a  week  or  a  month  the  equally 
mysterious  effluence  poured  over  it  from  the  thinking 
marrow,  and  diffuse  its  vibrations  to  another  excitable 
nervous  centre  ?  " 

I  have  said  that  although  our  imaginative  friend  is 
given  to  wild  speculations,  he  is  not  always  necessarily 
wrong.  We  know  too  little  about  the  laws  of  brain- 
force  to  be  dogmatic  with  reference  to  it.  I  am, 
myself,  therefore,  fully  in  sympathy  with  the  psycho- 
logical investigators.  When  it  comes  to  the  various 
pretended  sciences  by  which  men  and  women  make 
large  profits,  attempts  at  investigation  are  very  apt  to 
be  used  as  lucrative  advertisements  for  the  charlatans. 
But  a  series  of  investigations  of  the  significance  of 
certain  popular  beliefs  and  superstitions,  a  careful 
study  of  the  relations  of  certain  facts  to  each  other, 
—  whether  that  of  cause  and  effect,  or  merely  of  co- 
incidence, —  is  a  task  not  unworthy  of  sober-minded 
and  well-trained  students  of  nature.  Such  a  series  of 
investigations  has  been  recently  instituted,  and  was 
reported  at  a  late  meeting  held  in  the  rooms  of  the 
Boston  Natural  History  Society.  The  results  were 
mostly  negative,  and  in  one  sense  a  disappointment. 
A  single  case,  related  by  Professor  Royce,  attracted  a 


OVER   THE  TEACUPS.  17 

good  deal  of  attention.  It  was  reported  in  the  next 
morning's  newspapers,  and  will  be  given  at  full  length, 
doubtless,  in  the  next  number  of  the  Psychological 
Journal.  The  leading  facts  were,  briefly,  these :  A 
lady  in  Hamburg,  Germany,  wrote,  on  the  22d  of 
June  last,  that  she  had  what  she  supposed  to  be  night- 
mare on  the  night  of  the  17th,  five  days  before.  "  It 
seemed,"  she  wrote,  "  to  belong  to  you ;  to  be  a  hor- 
rid pain  in  your  head,  as  if  it  were  being  forcibly 
jammed  into  an  iron  casque,  or  some  such  pleasant  in- 
strument of  torture."  It  proved  that  on  that  same 
17th  of  June  her  sister  was  undergoing  a  painful 
operation  at  the  hands  of  a  dentist.  "  No  single 
case,"  adds  Professor  Royce,  "  proves,  or  even  makes 
probable,  the  existence  of  telepathic  toothaches ;  but  if 
there  are  any  more  cases  of  this  sort,  we  want  to  hear 
of  them,  and  that  all  the  more  because  no  folk-lore 
and  no  supernatural  horrors  have  as  yet  mingled  with 
the  natural  and  well-known  impressions  that  people 
associate  with  the  dentist's  chair." 

The  case  I  have  given  is,  I  am  confident,  absolutely 
free  from  every  source  of  error.  I  do  not  remember 
that  Mr.  Rathbone  had  communicated  with  me  since 
he  sent  me  a  plentiful  supply  of  mistletoe  a  year  ago 
last  Christmas.  The  account  I  received  from  him  was 
cut  out  of  "The  Sporting  Times"  of  March  5,  1887. 
My  own  knowledge  of  the  case  came  from  "  Kirby's 
Wonderful  Museum,"  a  work  presented  to  me  at  least 
thirty  years  ago.  I  had  not  looked  at  the  account, 
spoken  of  it,  nor  thought  of  it  for  a  long  time,  when 
it  came  to  me  by  a  kind  of  spontaneous  generation, 
as  it  seemed,  having  no  connection  with  any  previous 
train  of  thought  that  I  was  aware  of.  I  consider  the 


18  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

evidence  of  entire  independence,  apart  from  possible 
"  telepathic "  causation,  completely  water-proof,  air- 
tight, incombustible,  and  unassailable. 

I  referred,  when  first  reporting  this  curious  case  of 
coincidence,  with  suggestive  circumstances,  to  two 
others,  one  of  which  I  said  was  the  most  picturesque 
and  the  other  the  most  unlikely,  as  it  would  seem,  tc 
happen.  This  is  the  first  of  those  two  cases  :  — 

Grenville  Tudor  Phillips  was  a  younger  brother  of 
George  Phillips,  my  college  classmate,  and  of  Wen- 
dell Phillips,  the  great  orator.  He  lived  in  Europe  a 
large  part  of  his  life,  but  at  last  returned,  and,  in  the 
year  1863,  died  at  the  house  of  his  brother  George. 
I  read  his  death  in  the  paper ;  but,  having  seen  and 
heard  very  little  of  him  during  his  fife,  should  not 
have  been  much  impressed  by  the  fact,  but  for  the 
following  occurrence :  between  the  time  of  Grenville 
Phillips's  death  and  his  burial,  I  was  looking  in  upon 
my  brother,  then  living  in  the  house  in  which  we  were 
both  born.  Some  books  which  had  been  my  father's 
were  stored  in  shelves  in  the  room  I  used  to  occupy 
when  at  Cambridge.  Passing  my  eye  over  them,  an 
old  dark  quarto  attracted  my  attention.  It  must  be  a 
Bible,  I  said  to  myself,  —  perhaps  a  rare  one,  —  the 
'*  Breeches "  Bible  or  some  other  interesting  speci- 
men. I  took  it  from  the  shelves,  and,  as  I  did  so,  an 
old  slip  of  paper  fell  out  and  fluttered  to  the  floor. 
On  lifting  it  I  read  these  words  :  — 

The  name  is  Grenville  Tudor. 

What  was  the  meaning  of  this  slip  of  paper  coming 
to  light  at  this  time,  after  reposing  undisturbed  so 
long?  There  was  only  one  way  of  explaining  its 
presence  in  my  father's  old  Bible,  —  a  copy  of  the 
Scriptures  which  I  did  not  remember  ever  having 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  19 

handled  or  looked  into  before.  In  christening  a  child 
the  minister  is  liable  to  forget  the  name,  just  at  the 
moment  when  he  ought  to  remember  it.  My  father 
preached  occasionally  at  the  Brattle  Street  Church. 
I  take  this  for  granted,  for  I  remember  going  with 
him  on  one  occasion  when  he  did  so.  Nothing  was 
more  likely  than  that  he  should  be  asked  to  officiate 
at  the  baptism  of  the  younger  son  of  his  wife's  first 
cousin,  Judge  Phillips.  This  slip  was  handed  him  to 
remind  him  of  the  name.  He  brought  it  home,  put  it 
in  that  old  Bible,  and  there  it  lay  quietly  for  nearly 
half  a  century,  when,  as  if  it  had  just  heard  of  Mr. 
Phillips's  decease,  it  flew  from  its  hiding-place  and 
startled  the  eyes  of  those  who  had  just  read  his  name 
in  the  daily  column  of  deaths.  It  would  be  hard  to 
find  anything  more  than  a  mere  coincidence  here ;  but 
it  seems  curious  enough  to  be  worth  telling. 

The  second  of  these  two  last  stories  must  be  told  in 
prosaic  detail  to  show  its  whole  value  as  a  coincidence. 

One  evening  while  I  was  living  in  Charles  Street, 
I  received  a  call  from  Dr.  S.,  a  well-known  and 
highly  respected  Boston  physician,  a  particular  friend 
of  the  late  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  vice-president  of 
the  Southern  Confederacy.  It  was  with  reference  to 
a  work  which  Mr.  Stephens  was  about  to  publish  that 
Dr.  S.  called  upon  me.  After  talking  that  matter 
over  we  got  conversing  on  other  subjects,  among  the 
rest  a  family  relationship  existing  between  us,  —  not 
a  very  near  one,  but  one  which  I  think  I  had  seen 
mentioned  in  genealogical  accounts.  Mary  S.  (the 
last  name  being  the  same  as  that  of  my  visitant),  it 
appeared,  was  the  great-great-grandmother  of  Mrs.  H. 
and  myself.  After  cordially  recognizing  our  forgotten 
relationship,  now  for  the  first  time  called  to  mind,  we 


20  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

parted,  my  guest  leaving  me  for  his  own  home.  We 
had  been  sitting  in  my  library  on  the  lower  floor.  On 
going  up-stairs  where  Mrs.  H.  was  sitting  alone,  just 
as  I  entered  the  room  she  pushed  a  paper  across  the 
table  towards  me,  saying  that  perhaps  it  might  inter- 
est me.  It  was  one  of  a  number  of  old  family  papers 
which  she  had  brought  from  the  house  of  her  mother, 
recently  deceased. 

I  opened  the  paper,  which  was  an  old-looking  docu- 
ment, and  found  that  it  was  a  copy,  perhaps  made  in 
this  century,  of  the  will  of  that  same  Mary  S.  about 
whom  we  had  been  talking  down-stairs. 

If  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  purely  accidental  coin- 
cidence this  must  be  considered  an  instance  of  it. 

All  one  can  say  about  it  is  that  it  seems  very  un- 
likely that  such  a  coincidence  should  occur,  but  it  did. 

I  have  not  tried  to  keep  my  own  personality  out  of 
these  stories.  But  after  all,  how  little  difference  it 
makes  whether  or  not  a  writer  appears  with  a  mask 
on  which  everybody  can  take  off,  —  whether  he  bolts 
his  door  or  not,  when  everybody  can  look  in  at  his 
windows,  and  all  his  entrances  are  at  the  mercy  of  the 
critic's  skeleton  key  and  the  jimmy  of  any  ill-disposed 
assailant ! 

The  company  have  been  silent  listeners  for  the  most 
part ;  but  the  reader  will  have  a  chance  to  become 
better  acquainted  with  some  cf  them  by  and  by. 


n. 

TO  THE  READER. 

I  KNOW  that  it  is  a  hazardous  experiment  to  address 
myself  again  to  a  public  which  in  days  long  past  has 
given  me  a  generous  welcome.  But  my  readers  have 
been,  and  are,  a  very  faithful  constituency.  I  think 
there  are  many  among  them  who  would  rather  listen  to 
an  old  voice  they  are  used  to  than  to  a  new  one  of 
better  quality,  even  if  the  "childish  treble"  should 
betray  itself  now  and  then  in  the  tones  of  the  over- 
tired organ.  But  there  must  be  others,  —  I  am  afraid 
many  others,  —  who  will  exclaim :  "  He  has  had  his 
day,  and  why  can't  he  be  content  ?  We  don't  want 
literary  revenants,  superfluous  veterans,  writers  who 
have  worn  out  their  welcome  and  still  insist  on  being 
attended  to.  Give  us  something  fresh,  something  that 
belongs  to  our  day  and  generation.  Your  morning 
draught  was  well  enough,  but  we  don't  care  for  your 
evening  slip-slop.  You  are  not  in  relation  with  us, 
with  our  time,  our  ideas,  our  aims,  our  aspirations." 

Alas,  alas !  my  friend,  —  my  young  friend,  for  your 
hair  is  not  yet  whitened,  —  I  am  afraid  you  are  too 
nearly  right.  No  doubt,  —  no  doubt.  Tea-cups  are 
not  coffee-cups.  They  do  not  hold  so  much.  Their 
pallid  infusion  is  but  a  feeble  stimulant  compared 
with  the  black  decoction  served  at  the  morning  board. 
And  so,  perhaps,  if  wisdom  like  yours  were  compati- 
ble with  years  like  mine,  I  should  drop  my  pen  and 
make  no  further  attempts  upon  your  patience. 


22  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

But  suppose  that  a  writer  who  has  reached  and 
passed  the  natural  limit  of  serviceable  years  feels  that 
he  has  some  things  which  he  would  like  to  say,  and 
which  may  have  an  interest  for  a  limited  class  of  read- 
ers, —  is  he  not  right  in  trying  his  powers  and  calmly 
taking  the  risk  of  failure  ?  Does  it  not  seem  rather 
lazy  and  cowardly,  because  he  cannot  "  beat  his  rec- 
ord," or  even  come  up  to  the  level  of  what  he  has 
done  in  his  prime,  to  shrink  from  exerting  his  talent, 
such  as  it  is,  now  that  he  has  outlived  the  period  of  his 
greatest  vigor?  A  singer  who  is  no  longer  equal  to 
the  trials  of  opera  on  the  stage  may  yet  please  at  a 
chamber  concert  or  in  the  drawing-room.  There  is 
one  gratification  an  old  author  can  afford  a  certain 
class  of  critics :  that,  namely,  of  comparing  him  as  he 
is  with  what  he  was.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  mediocrity 
to  have  its  superiors  brought  within  range,  so  to 
speak ;  and  if  the  ablest  of  them  will  only  live  long 
enough,  and  keep  on  writing,  there  is  no  pop-gun  that 
cannot  reach  him.  But  I  fear  that  this  is  an  unainia- 
ble  reflection,  and  I  am  at  this  time  in  a  very  amiable 
mood. 

I  confess  that  there  is  something  agreeable  to  me 
in  renewing  my  relations  with  the  reading  public. 
Were  it  but  a  single  appearance,  it  would  give  me  a 
pleasant  glimpse  of  the  time  when  I  was  known  as 
a  frequent  literary  visitor.  Many  of  my  readers  —  if 
I  can  lure  any  from  the  pages  of  younger  writers  — 
will  prove  to  be  the  children,  or  the  grandchildren 
of  those  whose  acquaintance  I  made  something  more 
than  a  whole  generation  ago.  I  could  depend  on  a 
kind  welcome  from  my  contemporaries,  —  my  coevals. 
But  where  are  those  contemporaries  ?  Ay  de  mi  !  as 
Carlyle  used  to  exclaim,  —  Ah,  dear  me !  as  our  old 


OVER  THE   TEACUPS.  23 

women  say,  —  I  look  round  for  them,  and  see  only 
their  vacant  places.  The  old  vine  cannot  unwind  its 
tendrils.  The  branch  falls  with  the  decay  of  its  sup- 
port, and  must  cling  to  the  new  growths  around  it,  if 
it  would  not  lie  helpless  in  the  dust.  This  paper  is  a 
new  tendril,  feeling  its  way,  as  it  best  may,  to  what- 
ever it  can  wind  around.  The  thought  of  finding  here 
and  there  an  old  friend,  and  making,  it  may  be,  once 
in  a  while  a  new  one,  is  very  grateful  to  me.  The 
chief  drawback  to  the  pleasure  is  the  feeling  that  I 
am  submitting  to  that  inevitable  exposure  which  is  the 
penalty  of  authorship  in  every  form.  A  writer  must 
make  up  his  mind  to  the  possible  rough  treatment  of 
the  critics,  who  swarm  like  bacteria  whenever  there  is 
any  literary  material  on  which  they  can  feed.  I  have 
had  as  little  to  complain  of  as  most  writers,  yet  I 
think  it  is  always  with  reluctance  that  one  encounters 
the  promiscuous  handling  which  the  products  of  the 
mind  have  to  put  up  with,  as  much  as  the  fruit  and 
provisions  in  the  market-stalls.  I  had  rather  be  criti- 
cised, however,  than  criticise;  that  is,  express  my 
opinions  in  the  public  prints  of  other  writers'  work,  if 
they  are  living,  and  can  suffer,  as  I  should  often  have 
to  make  them.  There  are  enough,  thank  Heaven, 
without  me.  We  are  literary  cannibals,  and  our  wri- 
ters live  on  each  other  and  each  other's  productions  to 
a  fearful  extent.  What  the  mulberry  leaf  is  to  the 
silk-worm,  the  author's  book,  treatise,  essay,  poem,  is 
to  the  critical  larvae  that  feed  upon  it.  It  furnishes 
them  with  food  and  clothing.  The  process  may  not 
be  agreeable  to  the  mulberry  leaf  or  to  the  printed 
page ;  but  without  it  the  leaf  would  not  have  become 
the  silk  that  covers  the  empress's  shoulders,  and  but 
for  the  critic  the  author's  book  might  never  have 


24  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

reached  the  scholar's  table.  Scribblers  will  feed  on 
each  other,  and  if  we  insist  on  being  scribblers  we 
must  consent  to  be  fed  on.  We  must  try  to  endure 
philosophically  what  we  cannot  help,  and  ought  not,  I 
suppose,  to  wish  to  help. 

It  is  the  custom  at  our  table  to  vary  the  usual  talks 
by  the  reading  of  short  papers,  in  prose  or  verse,  by 
one  or  more  of  The  Teacups,  as  we  are  in  the  habit 
of  calling  those  who  make  up  our  company.  Thirty 
years  ago,  one  of  our  present  circle  —  "  Teacup  Num- 
ber Two,"  The  Professor,  —  read  a  paper  on  Old  Age, 
at  a  certain  Breakfast-table,  where  he  was  in  the  habit 
of  appearing.  That  paper  was  published  at  the  time, 
and  has  since  seen  the  light  in  other  forms.  He  did 
not  know  so  much  about  old  age  then  as  he  does  now, 
and  would  doubtless  write  somewhat  differently  if  he 
took  the  subject  up  again.  But  I  found  that  it  was 
the  general  wish  that  another  of  our  company  should 
let  us  hear  what  he  had  to  say  about  it.  I  received  a 
polite  note,  requesting  me  to  discourse  about  old  age, 
inasmuch  as  I  was  particularly  well  qualified  by  my 
experience  to  write  in  an  authoritative  way  concerning 
it.  The  fact  is  that  I,  —  for  it  is  myself  who  am  speak- 
ing, —  have  recently  arrived  at  the  age  of  threescore 
years  and  twenty,  —  fourscore  years  we  may  otherwise 
call  it.  In  the  arrangement  of  our  table,  I  am  Tea- 
cup Number  One,  and  I  may  as  well  say  that  I  am 
often  spoken  of  as  The  Dictator.  There  is  nothing 
invidious  in  this,  as  I  am  the  oldest  of  the  company, 
and  no  claim  is  less  likely  to  excite  jealousy  than  that 
of  priority  of  birth. 

I  received  congratulations  on  reaching  my  eightieth 
birthday,  not  only  from  our  circle  of  Teacups,  but 


OVER   THE   TEACUPS.  25 

t'rom  friends,  near  and  distant,  in  large  numbers.  I 
tried  to  acknowledge  these  kindly  missives  with  the 
aid  of  a  most  intelligent  secretary ;  but  I  fear  that 
there  were  gifts  not  thanked  for,  and  tokens  of 
good-will  not  recognized.  Let  any  neglected  corre- 
spondent be  assured  that  it  was  not  intentionally  that 
he  or  she  was  slighted.  I  was  grateful  for  every  such 
mark  of  esteem ;  even  for  the  telegram  from  an  un- 
known friend  in  a  distant  land,  for  which  I  cheerfully 
paid  the  considerable  charge  which  the  sender  doubt- 
less knew  it  would  give  me  pleasure  to  disburse  for 
such  an  expression  of  friendly  feeling. 

I  will  not  detain  the  reader  any  longer  from  the 
essay  I  have  promised. 

This  is  the  paper  read  to  The  Teacups. 

It  is  in  A  Song  of  Moses  that  we  find  the  words, 
made  very  familiar  to  us  by  the  Episcopal  Burial  Ser- 
vice, which  place  the  natural  limit  of  life  at  three- 
score years  and  ten,  with  an  extra  ten  years  for  some 
of  a  stronger  constitution  than  the  average.  Yet  we 
are  told  that  Moses  himself  lived  to  be  a  hundred  and 
twenty  years  old,  and  that  his  eye  was  not  dim  nor 
his  natural  strength  abated.  This  is  hard  to  accept 
literally,  but  we  need  not  doubt  that  he  was  very  old, 
and  in  remarkably  good  conditions/or  a  man  of  his  age. 
Among  his  followers  was  a  stout  old  captain,  Caleb, 
the  son  of  Jephunneh.  This  ancient  warrior  speaks 
of  himself  in  these  brave  terms :  "  Lo,  I  am  this  day 
fourscore  and  five  years  old.  As  yet,  I  am  as  strong 
this  day  as  I  was  in  the  day  that  Moses  sent  me ;  as 
my  strength  was  then,  even  so  is  my  strength  now,  for 
war,  both  to  go  out  and  to  come  in."  It  is  not  likely 
that  anybody  believed  his  brag  about  his  being  as 


26  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

good  a  man  for  active  service  at  eighty-five  as  he  was 
at  forty,  when  Moses  sent  him  out  to  spy  the  land  of 
Canaan.  But  he  was,  no  doubt,  lusty  and  vigorous 
for  his  years,  and  ready  to  smite  the  Canaanites  hip 
and  thigh,  and  drive  them  out,  and  take  possession 
of  their  land,  as  he  did  forthwith,  when  Moses  gave 
Trim  leave. 

Grand  old  men  there  were,  three  thousand  years 
ago !  But  not  all  octogenarians  were  like  Caleb,  the 
son  of  Jephunneh.  Listen  to  poor  old  Barzillai,  and 
hear  him  piping :  "  I  am  this  day  fourscore  years  old  ; 
and  can  I  discern  between  good  and  evil  ?  Can  thy 
servant  taste  what  I  eat  or  what  I  drink?  Can  I 
hear  any  more  the  voice  of  singing  men  and  singing 
women  ?  Wherefore,  then,  should  thy  servant  be  yet 
a  burden  unto  my  lord  the  king?"  And  poor  King 
David  was  worse  off  than  ftiis,  as  you  all  remember, 
at  the  early  age  of  seventy. 

Thirty  centuries  do  not  seem  to  have  made  any 
very  great  difference  in  the  extreme  limits  of  life. 
Without  pretending  to  rival  the  alleged  cases  of  life 
prolonged  beyond  the  middle  of  its  second  century, 
such  as  those  of  Henry  Jenkins  and  Thomas  Parr,  we 
can  make  a  good  showing  of  centenarians  and  nonage- 
narians. I  myself  remember  Dr.  Holyoke,  of  Salem, 
son  of  a  president  of  Harvard  College,  who  answered 
a  toast  proposed  in  his  honor  at  a  dinner  given  to 
him  on  his  hundredth  birthday. 

"  Father  Cleveland,"  our  venerated  city  missionary, 
was  born  June  21,  1772,  and  died  June  5,  1872, 
within  a  little  more  than  a  fortnight  of  his  hundredth 
birthday.  Colonel  Perkins,  of  Connecticut,  died  re- 
cently after  celebrating  his  centennial  anniversary. 

Among  nonagenarians,  three  whose  names  are  wel] 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  27 

known  to  Bostonians,  Lord  Lyndhurst,  Josiali  Quincy, 
and  Sidney  Bartlett,  were  remarkable  for  retaining 
their  faculties  in  their  extreme  age.  That  patriarch 
of  our  American  literature,  the  illustrious  historian  of 
his  country,  is  still  with  us,  his  birth  dating  in  1800. 

Ranke,  the  great  German  historian,  died  at  the  age 
of  ninety-one,  and  Chevreul,  the  eminent  chemist,  at 
that  of  a  hundred  and  two. 

Some  English  sporting  characters  have  furnished 
striking  examples  of  robust  longevity.  In  Gilpin's 
"  Forest  Scenery  "  there  is  the  story  of  one  of  these 
horseback  heroes.  Henry  Hastings  was  the  name  of 
this  old  gentleman,  who  lived  in  the  time  of  Charles 
the  First.  It  would  be  hard  to  find  a  better  portrait 
of  a  hunting  squire  than  that  which  the  Earl  of 
Shaftesbury  has  the  credit  of  having  drawn  of  this 
very  peculiar  personage.  His  description  ends  by 
saying,  "  He  lived  to  be  an  hundred,  and  never  lost  his 
eyesight  nor  used  spectacles.  He  got  on  horseback 
without  help,  and  rode  to  the  death  of  the  stag  till  he 
was  past  fourscore." 

Everything  depends  on  habit.  Old  people  can  do, 
of  course,  more  or  less  well,  what  they  have  been 
doing  all  their  lives  ;  but  try  to  teach  them  any  new 
tricks,  and  the  truth  of  the  old  adage  will  very  soon 
show  itself.  Mr.  Henry  Hastings  had  done  nothing 
but  hunt  all  his  days,  and  his  record  would  seem  to 
have  been  a  good  deal  like  that  of  Philippus  Zaehdarm 
in  that  untranslatable  epitaph  which  may  be  found  in 
"  Sartor  Resartus."  Judged  by  its  products,  it  was  a 
very  short  life  of  a  hundred  useless  twelvemonths. 

It  is  something  to  have  climbed  the  white  summit, 
the  Mont  Blanc  of  fourscore.  A  small  number  only 
of  mankind  ever  see  their  eightieth  anniversary.  I 


28  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

might  go  to  the  statistical  tables  of  the  annuity  and 
life  insurance  offices  for  extended  and  exact  informa- 
tion, but  I  prefer  to  take  the  facts  which  have  im- 
pressed themselves  upon  me  in  my  own  career. 

The  class  of  1829  at  Harvard  College,  of  which  I 
am  a  member,  graduated,  according  to  the  triennial, 
fifty-nine  in  number.  It  is  sixty  years,  then,  since  that 
time ;  and  as  they  were,  on  an  average,  about  twenty 
years  eld,  those  who  survive  must  have  reached  four- 
score years.  Of  the  fifty-nine  graduates  ten  only  are 
living,  or  were  at  the  last  accounts  ;  one  in  six,  very 
nearly.  In  the  first  ten  years  after  graduation,  our 
third  decade,  when  we  were  between  twenty  and  thirty 
years  old,  we  lost  three  members,  —  about  one  in 
twenty ;  between  the  ages  of  thirty  and  forty,  eight 
died,  —  one  in  seven  of  those  the  decade  began  with  ; 
from  forty  to  fifty,  only  two,  —  or  one  in  twenty-four ; 
from  fifty  to  sixty,  eight,  —  or  one  in  six  ;  from  sixty 
to  seventy,  fifteen,  —  or  two  out  of  every  five ;  from 
seventy  to  eighty,  twelve,  —  or  one  in  two.  The 
greatly  increased  mortality  which  began  with  our 
seventh  decade  went  on  steadily  increasing.  At  sixty 
we  come  "  within  range  of  the  rifle-pits,"  to  borrow 
an  expression  from  my  friend  Weir  Mitchell. 

Our  eminent  classmate,  the  late  Professor  Benjamin 
Peirce,  showed  by  numerical  comparison  that  the  men 
of  superior  ability  outlasted  the  average  of  their  fel- 
low-graduates. He  himself  lived  a  little  beyond  his. 
threescore  and  ten  years.  James  Freeman  Clarke 
almost  reached  the  age  of  eighty.  The  eighth  decade 
brought  the  fatal  year  for  Benjamin  Robbins  Curtis, 
the  great  lawyer,  who  was  one  of  the  judges  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States;  for  the  very 
able  chief  justice  of  Massachusetts,  George  Tyler 


OVER   THE  TEACUPS.  29 

Bigelow  ;  and  for  that  famous  wit  and  electric  centre 
of  social  life,  George  T.  Davis.  At  the  last  annual 
dinner  every  effort  was  made  to  bring  all  the  survivors 
of  the  class  together.  Six  of  the  ten  living  members 
were  there,  —  six  old  men  in  the  place  of  the  thirty  or 
forty  classmates  who  surrounded  the  long,  oval  table 
in  1859,  when  I  asked,  "  Has  there  any  old  fellow  got 
mixed  with  the  boys  ?  "  —  "  boys  "  whose  tongues  were 
as  the  vibrating  leaves  of  the  forest;  whose  talk  was 
like  the  voice  of  many  waters  ;  whose  laugh  was  as 
the  breaking  of  mighty  waves  upon  the  seashore. 
Among  the  six  at  our  late  dinner  was  our  first  scholar, 
the  thorough-bred  and  accomplished  engineer  who  held 
the  city  of  Lawrence  in  his  brain  before  it  spread 
itself  out  along  the  banks  of  the  Merrimac.  There, 
too,  was  the  poet  whose  National  Hymn,  "  My  Coun- 
try, 't  is  of  thee,"  is  known  to  more  millions,  and 
dearer  to  many  of  them,  than  all  the  other  songs  writ- 
ten since  the  Psalms  of  David.  Four  of  our  six  were 
clergymen ;  the  engineer  and  the  present  writer  com- 
pleted the  list.  Were  we  melancholy  ?  Did  we  talk 
of  graveyards  and  epitaphs  ?  No,  —  we  remembered 
our  dead  tenderly,  serenely,  feeling  deeply  what  we 
had  lost  in  those  who  but  a  little  while  ago  were  with 
us.  How  could  we  forget  James  Freeman  Clarke, 
that  man  of  noble  thought  and  vigorous  action,  who 
pervaded  this  community  with  his  spirit,  and  was  felt 
through  all  its  channels  as  are  the  light  and  the 
strength  that  radiate  through  the  wires  which  stretch 
above  us  ?  It  was  a  pride  and  a  happiness  to  have 
such  classmates  as  he  was  to  remember.  We  were 
not  the  moping,  complaining  graybeards  that  many 
might  suppose  we  must  have  been.  We  had  been 
favored  with  the  blessing  of  long  life.  We  had  seen 


30  OVER   THE  TEACUPS. 

the  drama  well  into  its  fifth  act.  The  sun  still  warmed 
us,  the  air  was  still  grateful  and  life-giving.  But  there 
was  another  underlying  source  of  our  cheerful  equa- 
nimity, which  we  could  not  conceal  from  ourselves  if 
we  had  wished  to  do  it.  Nature's  kindly  anodyne  is 
telling  upon  us  more  and  more  with  every  year.  Our 
old  doctors  used  to  give  an  opiate  which  they  called 
"  the  black  drop."  It  was  stronger  than  laudanum, 
and,  in  fact,  a  dangerously  powerful  narcotic.  Some- 
thing like  this  is  that  potent  drug  in  Nature's  pharma- 
copeia which  she  reserves  for  the  time  of  need,  —  the 
later  stages  of  life.  She  commonly  begins  adminis- 
tering it  at  about  the  time  of  the  "  grand  climacteric," 
the  ninth  septennial  period,  the  sixty-third  year. 
More  and  more  freely  she  gives  it,  as  the  years  go  on, 
to  her  grey-haired  children,  until,  if  they  last  long 
enough,  every  faculty  is  benumbed,  and  they  drop  off 
quietly  into  sleep  under  its  benign  influence. 

Do  you  say  that  old  age  is  unfeeling  ?  It  has  not 
vital  energy  enough  to  supply  the  waste  of  the  more 
exhausting  emotions.  Old  Men's  Tears,  which  fur- 
nished the  mournful  title  to  Joshua  Scottow's  Lamen- 
tations, do  not  suggest  the  deepest  grief  conceivable. 
A  little  breath  of  wind  brings  down  the  raindrops 
which  have  gathered  on  the  leaves  of  the  tremulous 
poplars.  A  very  slight  suggestion  brings  the  tears 
from  Marlborough's  eyes,  but  they  are  soon  over,  and 
he  is  smiling  again  as  an  allusion  carries  him  back  to 
the  days  of  Blenheim  and  Malplaquet.  Envy  not  the 
old  man  the  tranquillity  of  his  existence,  nor  yet  blame 
him  if  it  sometimes  looks  like  apathy.  Time,  the  in- 
exorable, does  not  threaten  him  with  the  scythe  so 
often  as  with  the  sand-bag.  He  does  not  cut,  but  lie 
stuns  and  stupefies.  One's  fellow-mortals  can  afford 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  31 

to  be  as  considerate  and  tender  with  him  as  Time  and 
Nature. 

Thefo  was  not  much  boasting  among  us  of  our  pres- 
ent or  our  past,  as  we  sat  together  in  the  little  room  at 
the  great  hotel.  A  certain  amount  of  self-deception  is 
quite  possible  at  threescore  years  and  ten,  but  at  three- 
score years  and  twenty  Nature  has  shown  most  of  those 
who  live  to  that  age  that  she  is  earnest,  and  means  to 
dismantle  and  have  done  with  them  in  a  very  little 
while.  As  for  boasting  of  our  past,  the  laudator  tem- 
poris  acti  makes  but  a  poor  figure  in  our  time.  Old 
people  used  to  talk  of  their  youth  as  if  there  were 
giants  in  those  days.  We  knew  some  tall  men  when 
we  were  young,  but  we  can  see  a  man  taller  than  any 
one  among  them  at  the  nearest  dime  museum.  We 
had  handsome  women  among  us,  of  high  local  reputa- 
tion, but  nowadays  we  have  professional  beauties  who 
challenge  the  world  to  criticise  them  as  boldly  as 
Phryne  ever  challenged  her  Athenian  admirers.  We 
had  fast  horses,  —  did  not  "  Old  Blue  "  trot  a  mile  in 
three  minutes  ?  True,  but  there  is  a  three-year-old 
colt  just  put  on  the  track  who  has  done  it  in  a  little 
more  than  two  thirds  of  that  time.  It  seems  as  if  the 
material  world  had  been  made  over  again  since  we 
were  boys.  It  is  but  a  short  time  since  we  were  count- 
ing up  the  miracles  we  had  lived  to  witness.  The 
list  is  familiar  enough :  the  railroad,  the  ocean  steamer, 
photography,  the  spectroscope,  the  telegraph,  tele- 
phone, phonograph,  anaesthetics,  electric  illumination, 
—  with  such  lesser  wonders  as  the  friction  match,  the 
sewing  machine,  and  the  bicycle.  And  now,  we  said, 
we  must  have  come  to  the  end  of  these  unparalleled 
developments  of  the  forces  of  nature.  We  must  rest 
on  our  achievements.  The  nineteenth  century  is  not 


82  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

likely  to  add  to  them ;  we  must  wait  for  the  twentieth 
century.  Many  of  us,  perhaps  most  of  us,  felt  in  that 
way.  We  had  seen  our  planet  furnished  by  the  art  of 
man  with  a  complete  nervous  system :  a  spinal  cord 
beneath  the  ocean,  secondary  centres,  —  ganglions,  — 
in  all  the  chief  places  where  men  are  gathered  to- 
gether, and  ramifications  extending  throughout  civili- 
zation. All  at  once,  by  the  side  of  this  talking  and 
light-giving  apparatus,  we  see  another  wire  stretched 
over  our  heads,  carrying  force  to  a  vast  metallic  mus- 
cular system,  —  a  slender  cord  conveying  the  strength 
of  a  hundred  men,  of  a  score  of  horses,  of  a  team  of 
elephants.  The  lightning  is  tamed  and  harnessed, 
the  thunderbolt  has  become  a  common  carrier.  No 
more  surprises  in  this  century!  A  voice  whispers, 
What  next  ? 

It  will  not  do  for  us  to  boast  about  our  young  days 
and  what  they  had  to  show.  It  is  a  great  deal  better 
to  boast  of  what  they  could  not  show,  and,  strange  as 
it  may  seem,  there  is  a  certain  satisfaction  in  it.  In 
these  days  of  electric  lighting,  when  you  have  only  to 
touch  a  button  and  your  parlor  or  bedroom  is  instantly 
flooded  with  light,  it  is  a  pleasure  to  revert  to  the  era 
of  the  tinder-box,  the  flint  and  steel,  and  the  brim- 
stone match.  It  gives  me  an  almost  proud  satisfaction 
to  tell  how  we  used,  when  those  implements  were  not 
at  hand  or  not  employed,  to  light  our  whale-oil  lamp 
by  blowing  a  live  coal  held  against  the  wick,  often 
swelling  our  cheeks  and  reddening  our  faces  until  we 
were  on  the  verge  of  apoplexy.  I  love  to  tell  of  our 
stage-coach  experiences,  of  our  sailing-packet  voyages, 
of  the  semi-barbarous  destitution  of  all  modern  com- 
forts  and  conveniences  through  which  we  bravely  lived 
and  came  out  the  estimable  personages  you  find  us. 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  33 

Think  of  it !  All  my  boyish  shooting  was  done  with 
a  flint-lock  gun  ;  the  percussion  lock  came  to  me  as 
one  of  those  new-fangled  notions  people  had  just  got 
hold  of.  We  ancients  can  make  a  grand  display  of 
minus  quantities  in  our  reminiscences,  and  the  figures 
look  almost  as  well  as  if  they  had  the  plus  sign  before 
them. 

I  am  afraid  that  old  people  found  life  rather  a  dull 
business  in  the  time  of  King  David  and  his  rich  old 
subject  and  friend,  Barzillai,  who,  poor  man,  could  not 
have  read  a  wicked  novel,  nor  enjoyed  a  symphony 
concert,  if  they  had  had  those  luxuries  in  his  day. 
There  were  no  pleasant  firesides,  for  there  were  no 
chimneys.  There  were  no  daily  newspapers  for  the 
old  man  to  read,  and  he  could  not  read  them  if  there 
were,  with  his  dimmed  eyesj  nor  hear  them  read,  very 
probably,  with  his  dulled  ears.  There  was  no  tobacco, 
a  soothing  drug,  which  in  its  various  forms  is  a  great 
solace  to  many  old  men  and  to  some  old  women,  — 
Carlyle  and  his  mother  used  to  smoke  their  pipes  to- 
gether, you  remember. 

Old  age  is  infinitely  more  cheerful,  for  intelligent 
people  at  least,  than  it  was  two  or  three  thousand 
years  ago.  It  is  our  duty,  so  far  as  we  can,  to  keep 
it  so.  There  will  always  be  enough  about  it  that  is 
solemn,  and  more  than  enough,  alas !  that  is  sadden- 
ing. But  how  much  there  is  in  our  times  to  lighten 
its  burdens  !  If  they  that  look  out  at  the  windows  be 
darkened,  the  optician  is  happy  to  supply  them  with 
eye-glasses  for  use  before  the  public,  and  spectacles 
for  their  hours  of  privacy.  If  the  grinders  cease  be- 
cause they  are  few,  they  can  be  made  many  again  by 
a  third  dentition,  which  brings  no  toothache  in  its 
train.  By  temperance  and  good  habits  of  life,  proper 


34  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

clothing,  well-warmed,  well-drained,  and  well-venti- 
lated dwellings,  and  sufficient,  not  too  much  exercise, 
the  old  man  of  our  time  may  keep  his  muscular 
strength  in  very  good  condition.  I  doubt  if  Mr. 
Gladstone,  who  is  fast  nearing  his  eightieth  birthday, 
would  boast,  in  the  style  of  Caleb,  that  he  was  as  good 
a  man  with  his  axe  as  he  was  when  he  was  forty,  but 
I  would  back  him,'  —  if  the  match  were  possible,  — 
for  a  hundred  shekels,  against  that  over-confident  old 
Israelite,  to  cut  down  and  chop  up  a  cedar  of  Leba- 
non. I  know  a  most  excellent  clergyman,  not  far 
from  my  own  time  of  life,  whom  I  would  pit  against 
any  old  Hebrew  rabbi  or  Greek  philosopher  of  his 
years  and  weight,  if  they  could  return  to  the  flesh,  to 
run  a  quarter  of  a  mile  on  a  good,  level  track. 

We  must  not  make  too  much  of  such  exceptional 
cases  of  prolonged  activity.  I  often  reproached  my 
dear  friend  and  classmate,  James  Freeman  Clarke, 
that  his  ceaseless  labors  made  it  impossible  for  his  co- 
evals to  enjoy  the  luxury  of  that  repose  which  their 
years  demanded.  A  wise  old  man,  the  late  Dr.  James 
Walker,  president  of  Harvard  University,  said  that 
the  great  privilege  of  old  age  was  the  getting  rid  of 
responsibilities.  These  hard-working  veterans  will 
not  let  one  get  rid  of  them  until  he  drops  in  his  har- 
ness, and  so  gets  rid  of  them  and  his  life  together. 
How  often  has  many  a  tired  old  man  envied  the  super- 
annuated family  cat,  stretched  upon  the  rug  before 
the  fire,  letting  the  genial  warmth  tranquilly  diffuse 
itself  through  all  her  internal  arrangements !  No 
more  watching  for  mice  in  dark,  damp  cellars,  no 
more  awaiting  the  savage  gray  rat  at  the  mouth  of 
his  den,  no  more  scurrying  up  trees  and  lamp-posts 
to  avoid  the  neighbor's  cur  who  wishes  to  make  her 


OVER    THE  TEACUPS.  35 

acquaintance  !  It  is  very  grand  to  "  die  in  harness," 
but  it  is  very  pleasant  to  have  the  tight  straps  un- 
buckled and  the  heavy  collar  lifted  from  the  neck  and 
shoulders. 

It  is  natural  enough  to  cling  to  life.  "We  are  used 
to  atmospheric  existence,  and  can  hardly  conceive  of 
ourselves  except  as  breathing  creatures.  We  have 
never  tried  any  other  mode  of  being,  or,  if  we  have, 
we  have  forgotten  all  about  it,  whptever  Wordsworth's 
grand  ode  may  tell  us  we  remember.  Heaven  itself 
must  be  an  experiment  to  every  human  soul  which 
shall  find  itself  there.  It  may  take  time  for  an  earth- 
born  saint  to  become  acclimated  to  the  celestial  ether, 
—  that  is,  if  time  can  be  said  to  exist  for  a  disem- 
bodied spirit.  We  are  all  sentenced  to  capital  pun- 
ishment for  the  crime  of  living,  and  though  the  con- 
demned cell  of  our  earthly  existence  is  but  a  narrow 
and  bare  dwelling-place,  we  have  adjusted  ourselves 
to  it,  and  made  it  tolerably  comfortable  for  the  little 
while  we  are  to  be  confined  in  it.  The  prisoner  of 
Chillon 

regained  [his]  freedom  -with  a  sigh, 

and  a  tender-hearted  mortal  might  be  pardoned  for 
looking  back,  like  the  poor  lady  who  was  driven  from 
her  dwelling-place  by  fire  and  brimstone,  at  the  home 
he  was  leaving  for  the  "  undiscovered  country." 

On  the  other  hand,  a  good  many  persons,  not  suici- 
dal in  their  tendencies,  get  more  of  life  than  they 
want.  One  of  our  wealthy  citizens  said,  on  hearing 
that  a  friend  had  dropped  off  from  apoplexy,  that  it 
mads  his  mouth  water  to  hear  of  such  a  case.  It  was 
an  odd  expression,  but  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  fine 
old  gentleman  to  whom  it  was  attributed  made  use  of 
it.  He  had  had  enough  of  his  gout  and  other  infirmi- 


36  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

ties.  Swift's  account  of  the  Struldbrugs  is  not  very 
amusing  reading  for  old  people,  but  some  may  find  it 
a  consolation  to  reflect  on  the  probable  miseries  they 
escape  in  not  being  doomed  to  an  undying  earthly  ex- 
istence. 

There  are  strange  diversities  in  the  way  in  which 
different  old  persons  look  upon  their  prospects.  A 
millionaire  whom  I  well  remember  confessed  that  he 
should  like  to  live  long  enough  to  learn  how  much  a 
certain  fellow-citizen,  a  multimillionaire,  was  worth. 
One  of  the  three  nonagenarians  before  referred  to  ex- 
pressed himself  as  having  a  great  curiosity  about  the 
new  sphere  of  existence  to  which  he  was  looking  for- 
ward. 

The  feeling  must  of  necessity  come  to  many  aged 
persons  that  they  have  outlived  their  usefulness ;  that 
they  are  no  longer  wanted,  but  rather  in  the  way, 
drags  on  the  wheels  rather  than  helping  them  forward. 
But  let  them  remember  the  often-quoted  line  of  Mil- 
ton, — 

"  They  also  serve  who  only  stand  and  wait." 

This  is  peculiarly  true  of  them.  They  are  helping 
others  without  always  being  aware  of  it.  They  are 
the  shields,  the  breakwaters,  of  those  who  come  after 
them.  Every  decade  is  a  defence  of  the  one  next  be- 
hind it.  At  thirty  the  youth  has  sobered  into  man- 
hood, but  the  strong  men  of  forty  rise  in  almost  un- 
broken rank  between  him  and  the  approaches  of  old 
age  as  they  show  in  the  men  of  fifty.  At  forty  he 
looks  with  a  sense  of  security  at  the  strong  men  of 
fifty,  and  sees  behind  them  the  row  of  sturdy  sexage- 
narians. When  fifty  is  reached,  somehow  sixty  does 
not  look  so  old  as  it  once  used  to,  and  seventy  is  still 
afar  off.  After  sixty  the  stern  sentence  of  the  burial 


OVER   THE   TEACUPS.  37 

service  seems  to  have  a  meaning  that  one  did  not  no- 
tice in  former  years.  There  begins  to  be  something 
person?!  about  it.  But  if  one  lives  to  seventy  he  soon 
gets  used  to  the  text  with  the  threescore  years  and  ten 
in  it,  and  begins  to  count  himself  among  those  who  by 
reason  of  strength  are  destined  to  reach  fourscore,  of 
whom  he  can  see  a  number  still  in  reasonably  good 
condition.  The  octogenarian  loves  to  read  about  peo- 
ple of  ninety  and  over.  He  peers  among  the  asterisks 
of  the  triennial  catalogue  of  the  University  for  the 
names  of  graduates  who  have  been  seventy  years  out 
of  college  and  remain  still  unstarred.  He  is  curious 
about  the  biographies  of  centenarians.  Such  esca- 
pades as  those  of  that  terrible  old  sinner  and  ancestor 
of  great  men,  the  Reverend  Stephen  Bachelder,  inter- 
est him  as  they  never  did  before.  But  he  cannot  de- 
ceive himself  much  longer.  See  him  walking  on  a 
level  surface,  and  he  steps  off  almost  as  well  as  ever  ; 
but  watch  him  coming  down  a  flight  of  stairs,  and  the 
family  record  could  not  tell  his  years  more  faithfully. 
He  cut  you  dead,  you  say  ?  Did  it  occur  to  you  that 
he  could  not  see  you  clearly  enough  to  know  you  from 
any  other  son  or  daughter  of  Adam  ?  He  said  he  was 
very  glad  to  hear  it,  did  he,  when  you  told  him  that 
your  beloved  grandmother  had  just  deceased?  Did 
you  happen  to  remember  that  though  he  does  not 
allow  that  he  is  deaf,  he  will  not  deny  that  he  does 
not  hear  quite  so  well  as  he  used  to?  No  matter 
about  his  failings  ;  the  longer  he  holds  on  to  life,  the 
longer  he  makes  life  seem  to  all  the  living  who  fol- 
low him,  and  thus  he  is  their  constant  benefactor. 

Every  stage  of  existence  has  its  special  trials  and 
its  special  consolations.  Habits  are  the  crutches  of 
old  age ;  by  the  aid  of  these  we  manage  to  hobble 


gg  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

along  after  the  mental  joints  are  stiff  and  the  muscles 
rheumatic,  to  speak  metaphorically,  —  that  is  to  say, 
when  every  act  of  self-determination  costs  an  effort 
and  a  pang.  We  become  more  and  more  automatic  as 
we  grow  older,  and  if  we  lived  long  enough  we  should 
come  to  be  pieces  of  creaking  machinery  like  Maelzel's 
chess  player,  —  or  what  that  seemed  to  be. 

Emerson  was  sixty-three  years  old,  the  year  I  have 
referred  to  as  that  of  the  grand  climacteric,  when  he 
read  to  his  son  the  poem  he  called  "  Terminus,"  be- 
ginning : 

"  It  is  time  to  be  old, 
To  take  in  sail. 
The  God  of  bounds, 
Who  sets  to  seas  a  shore, 
Came  to  me  in  his  fatal  rounds 
And  said,  '  No  more !  '  " 

It  was  early  in  life  to  feel  that  the  productive  stage 
was  over,  but  he  had  received  warning  from  within, 
and  did  not  wish  to  wait  for  outside  advices.  There 
is  all  the  difference  in  the  world  in  the  mental  as  in 
the  bodily  constitution  of  different  individuals.  Some 
must  "  take  in  sail "  sooner,  some  later.  We  can  get 
a  useful  lesson  from  the  American  and  the  English 
elms  on  our  Common.  The  American  elms  are  quite 
bare,  and  have  been  so  for  weeks.  They  know  very 
well  that  they  are  going  to  have  storms  to  wrestle 
with  ;  they  have  not  forgotten  the  gales  of  September 
and  the  tempests  of  the  late  autumn  and  early  winter. 
It  is  a  hard  fight  they  are  going  to  have,  and  they 
strip  their  coats  off  and  roll  up  their  shirt-sleeves,  and 
show  themselves  bare-armed  and  ready  for  the  con- 
test. The  English  elms  are  of  a  more  robust  build, 
and  stand  defiant,  with  all  their  summer  clothing 
about  their  sturdy  frames.  They  may  yet  have  to 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  39 

learn  a  lesson  of  their  American  cousins,  for  notwith- 
standing their  compact  and  solid  structure  they  go  to 
pieces  fc  the  great  winds  just  as  ours  do.  We  must 
drop  much  of  our  foliage  before  winter  is  upon  us. 
We  must  take  in  sail  and  throw  over  cargo,  if  that  is 
necessary,  to  keep  us  afloat.  We  have  to  decide  be- 
tween our  duties  and  our  instinctive  demand  of  rest, 
I  can  believe  that  some  have  welcomed  the  decay  of 
their  active  powers  because  it  furnished  them  with 
peremptory  reasons  for  sparing  themselves  during  the 
few  years  that  were  left  them. 

Age  brings  other  obvious  changes  besides  the  loss 
of  active  power.  The  sensibilities  are  less  keen,  the 
intelligence  is  less  lively,  as  we  might  expect  under 
the  influence  of  that  narcotic  which  Nature  adminis- 
ters. But  there  is  another  effect  of  her  "  black  drop  " 
which  is  not  so  commonly  recognized.  Old  age  is  like 
an  opium-dream.  Nothing  seems  real  except  what  is 
unreal.  I  am  sure  that  the  pictures  painted  by  the 
imagination,  —  the  faded  frescos  on  the  walls  of  mem- 
ory, —  come  out  in  clearer  and  brighter  colors  than 
belonged  to  them  many  years  earlier.  Nature  has  her 
special  favors  for  her  children  of  every  age,  and  this 
is  one  which  she  reserves  for  our  second  childhood. 

No  man  can  reach  an  advanced  age  without  think- 
ing of  that  great  change  to  which,  in  the  course  of 
nature,  he  must  be  so  near.  It  has  been  remarked 
that  the  sterner  beliefs  of  rigid  theologians  are  apt  to 
soften  in  their  later  years.  All  reflecting  persons, 
even  those  whose  minds  have  been  half  palsied  by  the 
deadly  dogmas  which  have  done  all  they  could  to  dis- 
organize  their  thinking  powers,  —  all  reflecting  per- 
sons, I  say,  must  recognize,  in  looking  back  over  a 
long  life,  how  largely  their  creeds,  their  course  of  life, 


40  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

their  wisdom  and  unwisdom,  their  whole  characters, 
were  shaped  by  the  conditions  which  surrounded  them. 
Little  children  they  came  from  the  hands  of  the  Fa- 
ther of  all ;  little  children  in  their  helplessness,  their 
ignorance,  they  are  going  back  to  Him.  They  cannot 
help  feeling  that  they  are  to  be  transferred  from  the 
rude  embrace  of  the  boisterous  elements  to  arms  that 
will  receive  them  tenderly.  Poor  planetary  found- 
lings, they  have  known  hard  treatment  at  the  hands 
of  the  brute  forces  of  nature,  from  the  control  of  which 
they  are  soon  to  be  set  free.  There  are  some  old 
pessimists,  it  is  true,  who  believe  that  they  and  a  few 
others  are  on  a  raft,  and  that  the  ship  which  they  have 
quitted,  holding  the  rest  of  mankind,  is  going  down 
with  all  on  board.  It  is  no  wonder  that  there  should 
be  such  when  we  remember  what  have  been  the  teach- 
ings of  the  priesthood  through  long  series  of  ignorant 
centuries.  Every  age  has  to  shape  the  Divine  image 
it  worships  over  again,  —  the  present  age  and  our  own 
country  are  busily  engaged  in  the  task  at  this  time. 
We  unmake  Presidents  and  make  new  ones.  This  is 
an  apprenticeship  for  a  higher  task.  Our  doctrinal 
teachers  are  unmaking  the  Deity  of  the  Westminster 
Catechism  and  trying  to  model  a  new  one,  with  more 
of  modern  humanity  and  less  of  ancient  barbarism  in 
his  composition.  If  Jonathan  Edwards  had  lived  long 
enough,  I  have  no  doubt  his  creed  would  have  softened 
into  a  kindly,  humanized  belief. 

Some  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago,  I  said  to  Long- 
fellow that  certain  statistical  tables  I  had  seen  went 
to  show  that  poets  were  not  a  long-lived  race.  He 
doubted  whether  there  was  anything  to  prove  they 
were  particularly  short-lived.  Soon  after  this,  he 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  41 

handed  me  a  list  he  had  drawn  up.  I  cannot  lay  my 
hand  upon  it  at  this  moment,  but  I  remember  that 
Metast'itsio  was  the  oldest  of  them  all.  He  died  at  the 
age  of  eighty-four.  I  have  had  some  tables  made  out, 
which  I  have  every  reason  to  believe  are  correct  so  far 
as  they  go.  From  these,  it  appears  that  twenty  Eng- 
lish poets  lived  to  the  average  age  of  fifty-six  yearc 
and  a  little  over.  The  eight  American  poets  on  the 
list  averaged  seventy-three  and  a  half,  nearly,  and 
they  are  not  all  dead  yet.  The  list  including  Greek, 
Latin,  Italian,  and  German  poets,  with  American  and 
English,  gave  an  average  of  a  little  over  sixty-two 
years.  Our  young  poets  need  not  be  alarmed.  They 
can  remember  that  Bryant  lived  to  be  eighty-three 
years  old,  that  Longfellow  reached  seventy-five  and 
Halleck  seventy-seven,  while  Whittier  is  living  at  the 
age  of  nearly  eighty-two.  Tennyson  is  still  writing  at 
eighty,  and  Browning  reached  the  age  of  seventy-seven. 
Shall  a  man  who  in  his  younger  days  has  written 
poetry,  or  what  passed  for  it,  continue  to  attempt  it 
in  his  later  years  ?  Certainly,  if  it  amuses  or  interests 
him,  no  one  would  object  to  his  writing  in  verse  as 
much  as  he  likes.  Whether  he  should  continue  to 
write  for  the  public  is  another  question.  Poetry  is  a 
good  deal  a  matter  of  heart-beats,  and  the  circulation 
is  more  languid  in  the  later  period  of  life.  The  joints 
are  less  supple  ;  the  arteries  are  more  or  less  "  ossi- 
fied." Something  like  these  changes  has  taken  place 
in  the  mind.  It  has  lost  the  flexibility,  the  plastic 
docility,  which  it  had  in  youth  and  early  manhood, 
when  the  gristle  had  but  just  become  hardened  into 
bone.  It  is  the  nature  of  poetry  to  writhe  itself  along 
through  the  tangled  growths  of  the  vocabulary,  as  a 
snake  winds  through  the  grass,  in  sinuous,  complex, 


42  OVEB  THE  TEACUPS. 

and  unexpected  curves,  which  crack  every  joint  that  is 
not  supple  as  india-rubber. 

I  had  a  poem  that  I  wanted  to  print  just  here.  But 
after  what  I  have  this  moment  said,  I  hesitated, 
thinking  that  I  might  provoke  the  obvious  remark 
that  I  exemplified  the  unfitness  of  which  I  had  been 
speaking.  I  remembered  the  advice  I  had  given  to  a 
poetical  aspirant  not  long  since,  which  I  think  deserves 
a  paragraph  to  itself. 

My  friend,  I  said,  I  hope  you  will  not  write  in  verse. 
When  you  write  in  prose  you  say  what  you  mean. 
When  you  write  in  rhyme  you  say  what  you  must. 

Should  I  send  this  poem  to  the  publishers,  or  not  ? 
"  Some  said, '  John,  print  it  ; '  others  said,  '  Not  so.'  " 

I  did  not  ask  "some"  or  "others."  Perhaps  I 
should  have  thought  it  best  to  keep  my  poem  to  my- 
self and  the  few  friends  for  whom  it  was  written.  All 
at  once,  my  daimon  —  that  other  Me  over  whom  I 
button  my  waistcoat  when  I  button  it  over  my  own 
person  — put  it  into  my  head  to  look  up  the  story  of 
Madame  Saqui.  She  was  a  famous  danseuse,  who 
danced  Napoleon  in  and  out,  and  several  other  dynas- 
ties besides.  Her  last  appearance  was  at  the  age  of 
seventy-six,  which  is  rather  late  in  life  for  the  tight 
rope,  one  of  her  specialties.  Jules  Janin  mummified 
her  when  she  died  in  1866,  at  the  age  of  eighty.  He 
spiced  her  up  in  his  eulogy  as  if  she  had  been  the 
queen  of  a  modern  Pharaoh.  His  foamy  and  flowery 
rhetoric  put  me  into  such  a  state  of  good-nature  that 
1  said,  I  will  print  my  poem,  and  let  the  critical  Gil 
Bias  handle  it  as  he  did  the  archbishop's  sermon,  — 
or  would  have  done,  if  he  had  been  a  writer  for  the 
'*  Salamanca  Weekly." 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  43 

It  must  be  premised  that  a  very  .beautiful  loving 
cup  was  presented  to  me  on  my  recent  birthday,  by 
eleven  ladies  of  my  acquaintance.  This  was  the  most 
costly  and  notable  of  all  the  many  tributes  I  received, 
and  for  which  in  different  forms  I  expressed  my  grat- 
itude. 

TO  THE  ELEVEN  LADIES 

WHO    PRESENTED    ME    WITH    A    SILVER    LOVING    CUP    ON    THE 
TWENTY-NINTH   OF   AUGUST,   M   DCCC   LXXXIX. 

"  Who  gave  this  cup  ?  "     The  secret  thou  wouldst  steal 
Its  brimming  flood  forbids  it  to  reveal  : 
No  mortal's  eye  shall  read  it  till  he  first 
Cool  the  red  throat  of  thirst. 

If  on  the  golden  floor  one  draught  remain, 
Trust  me,  thy  careful  search  will  be  in  vain  ; 
Not  till  the  bowl  is  emptied  shalt  thou  know 
The  names  enrolled  below. 

Deeper  than  Truth  lies  buried  in  her  well 
Those  modest  names  the  graven  letters  spell 
Hide  from  the  sight  ;  but  wait,  and  thou  shalt  see 
Who  the  good  angels  be 

Whose  bounty  glistens  in  the  beauteous  gift 
That  friendly  hands  to  loving  lips  shall  lift : 
Turn  the  fair  goblet  when  its  floor  is  dry,  — 
Their  names  shall  meet  thine  eye. 

Count  thou  their  number  on  the  beads  of  Heaven,  — 
Alas  !  the  clustered  Pleiads  are  but  seven  ; 
Nay,  the  nine  sister  Muses  are  too  few,  — 
The  Graces  must  add  two. 

«  For  whom  this  gift  ?  "     For  one  who  all  too  long 
Clings  to  his  bough  among  the  groves  of  song  ; 
Autumn's  last  leaf,  that  spreads  its  faded  wing 
To  greet  a  second  spring. 


44  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

Dear  friends,  kind  friends,  whate'er  the  cup  may  hold, 
Bathing  its  burnished  depths,  will  change  to  gold  : 
Its  last  bright  drop  let  thirsty  Maenads  drain, 
Its  fragrance  will  remain. 

Better  love's  perfume  in  the  empty  bowl 
Than  wine's  nepenthe  for  the  aching  soul 
Sweeter  than  song  that  ever  poet  sung, 
It  makes  an  old  heart  young  ! 


m. 

AFTER  the  reading  of  the  paper  which  was  reported 
in  the  preceding  number  of  this  record,  the  company 
fell  into  talk  upon  the  subject  with  which  it  dealt. 

The  Mistress.  "  I  could  have  wished  you  had  said 
more  about  the  religious  attitude  of  old  age  as  such. 
Surely  the  thoughts  of  aged  persons  must  be  very 
much  taken  up  with  the  question  of  what  is  to  become 
of  them.  I  should  like  to  have  The  Dictator  explain 
himself  a  little  more  fully  on  this  point." 

My  dear  madam,  I  said,  it  is  a  delicate  matter  to 
talk  about.  You  remember  Mr.  Calhoun's  response 
to  the  advances  of  an  over-zealous  young  clergyman 
who  wished  to  examine  him  as  to  his  outfit  for  the 
long  journey.  I  think  the  relations  between  man  and 
his  Maker  grow  more  intimate,  more  confidential,  if  I 
may  say  so,  with  advancing  years.  The  old  man  is 
less  disposed  to  argue  about  special  matters  of  belief, 
and  more  ready  to  sympathize  with  spiritually  minded 
persons  without  anxious  questioning  as  to  the  fold  to 
which  they  belong.  That  kindly  judgment  which 
he  exercises  with  regard  to  others  he  will,  naturally 
enough,  apply  to  himself.  The  caressing  tone  in  which 
the  Emperor  Hadrian  addresses  his  soul  is  very  much 
like  that  of  an  old  person  talking  with  a  grandchild  or 
gome  other  pet :  — 

"  Animula,  vagula,  blandnla, 
Hospes  comesque  corporis." 

"  Dear  little,  flitting,  pleasing  sprite, 
The  body's  comrade  and  its  guest." 


46  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

How  like  the  language  of  Catullus  to  Lesbia's  spar- 
row! 

More  and  more  the  old  man  finds  his  pleasures  in 
memory,  as  the  present  becomes  unreal  and  dreamlike, 
and  the  vista  of  his  earthly  future  narrows  and  closes 
in  upon  him.  At  last,  if  he  live  long  enough,  life 
comes  to  be  little  more  than  a  gentle  and  peaceful  de- 
lirium of  pleasing  recollections.  To  say,  as  Dante 
says,  that  there  is  no  greater  grief  than  to  remember 
past  happiness  in  the  hour  of  misery  is  not  giving  the 
whole  truth.  In  the  midst  of  the  misery,  as  many 
would  call  it,  of  extreme  old  age,  there  is  often  a  di- 
vine consolation  in  recalling  the  happy  moments  and 
days  and  years  of  times  long  past.  So  beautiful  are 
the  visions  of  bygone  delight  that  one  could  hardly 
wish  them  to  become  real,  lest  they  should  lose  their 
ineffable  charm.  I  can  almost  conceive  of  a  dozing 
and  dreamy  centenarian  saying  to  one  he  loves,  "Go, 
darling,  go!  Spread  your  wings  and  leave  me.  So 
shall  you  enter  that  world  of  memory  where  all  is 
lovely.  I  shall  not  hear  the  sound  of  your  footsteps 
any  more,  but  you  will  float  before  me,  an  aerial  pres- 
ence. I  shall  not  hear  any  word  from  your  lips, 
but  I  shall  have  a  deeper  sense  of  your  nearness  to  me 
than  speech  can  give.  I  shall  feel,  in  my  still  soli- 
tude, as  the  Ancient  Mariner  felt  when  the  seraph 
band  gathered  before  him :  — 

"  '  No  voice  did  they  impart  — 

No  voice;  but  oh!  the  silence  sank 
Like  music  on  my  heart.' " 

I  said  that  the  lenient  way  in  which  the  old  look  at 
the  failings  of  others  naturally  leads  them  to  judge 
themselves  more  charitably.  They  find  an  apology 
for  their  short-comings  and  wrong-doings  in  another 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  47 

consideration.  They  know  very  well  that  they  are  not 
the  same  persons  as  the  middle-aged  individuals,  the 
young  iaen,  the  boys,  the  children,  that  bore  their 
names,  and  whose  lives  were  continuous  with  theirs. 
Here  is  an  old  man  who  can  remember  the  first  time 
he  was  allowed  to  go  shooting.  What  a  remorseless 
young  destroyer  he  was,  to  be  sure !  Wherever  he 
saw  a  feather,  wherever  a  poor  little  squirrel  showed 
his  bushy  tail,  bang !  went  the  old  "  king's  arm,"  and 
the  feathers  or  the  fur  were  set  flying  like  so  much 
chaff.  Now  that  same  old  man,  —  the  mortal  that  was 
called  by  his  name  and  has  passed  for  the  same  per- 
son for  some  scores  of  years,  —  is  considered  absurdly 
sentimental  by  kind-hearted  women,  because  he  opens 
the  fly-trap  and  sets  all  its  captives  free,  —  out-of- 
doors,  of  course,  but  the  dear  souls  all  insisting,  mean- 
while, that  the  flies  will,  every  one  of  them,  be  back 
again  in  the  house  before  the  day  is  over.  Do  you 
suppose  that  venerable  sinner  expects  to  be  rigorously 
called  to  account  for  the  want  of  feeling  he  showed  in 
those  early  years,  when  the  instinct  of  destruction,  de- 
rived from  his  forest-roaming  ancestors,  led  him  to 
acts  which  he  now  looks  upon  with  pain  and  aversion  ? 
"  Senex  "  has  seen  three  generations  grow  up,  the 
son  repeating  the  virtues  and  the  failings  of  the  father, 
the  grandson  showing  the  same  characteristics  as  the 
father  and  grandfather.  He  knows  that  if  such  or 
such  a  young  fellow  had  lived  to  the  next  stage  of 
life  he  would  very  probably  have  caught  up  with  his 
mother's  virtues,  which,  like  a  graft  of  a  late  fruit  on 
an  early  apple  or  pear  tree,  do  not  ripen  in  her  chil- 
dren until  late  in  the  season.  He  has  seen  the  succes- 
sive ripening  of  one  quality  after  another  on  the 
boughs  of  his  own  life,  and  he  finds  it  hard  to  condemn 


48  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

himself  for  faults  which  only  needed  time  to  fall  off 
and  be  succeeded  by  better  fruitage.  I  cannot  help 
thinking  that  the  recording  angel  not  only  drops  a 
tear  upon  many  a  human  failing,  which  blots  it  out 
forever,  but  that  he  hands  many  an  old  record-book 
to  the  imp  that  does  his  bidding,  and  orders  him  to 
throw  that  into  the  fire  instead  of  the  sinner  for  whom 
the  little  wretch  had  kindled  it. 

"  And  pitched  him  in  after  it,  I  hope,"  said  Number 
Seven,  who  is  in  some  points  as  much  of  an  optimist 
as  any  one  among  us,  in  spite  of  the  squint  in  his 
brain,  —  or  in  virtue  of  it,  if  you  choose  to  have  it  so. 

"  I  like  Wordsworth's  '  Matthew,'  "  said  Number 
Five,  "  as  well  as  any  picture  of  old  age  I  remember." 

"  Can  you  repeat  it  to  us  ? "  asked  one  of  The 
Teacups. 

"  I  can  recall  two  verses  of  it,"  said  Number  Five, 
and  she  recited  the  two  following  ones.  Number  Five 
has  a  very  sweet  voice.  The  moment  she  speaks  all 
the  faces  turn  toward  her.  I  don't  know  what  its  se- 
cret is,  but  it  is  a  voice  that  makes  friends  of  everybody. 

' '  The  sighs  which  Matthew  heaved  were  sighs 
Of  one  tired  out  with  fun  and  madness  ; 
The  tears  which  came  to  Matthew's  eyes 
Were  tears  of  light,  the  dew  of  gladness. 

' '  Yet,  sometimes,  when  the  secret  cup 
Of  still  and  serious  thought  went  round, 
It  seemed  as  if  he  drank  it  up, 
He  felt  with  spirit  so  profound.' 

"  This  was  the  way  in  which  Wordsworth  paid  his 
tribute  to  a 

"  '  Soul  of  God's  best  earthly  mould.'  " 

The  sweet  voice  left  a  trance-like  silence  after  it, 
which  may  have  lasted  twenty  heart-beats.  Then  I 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  49 

said,  We  all  thank  you  for  your  charming  quotation. 
How  much  more  wholesome  a  picture  of  humanity  than 
such  staff  as  the  author  of  the  "  Night  Thoughts  " 
has  left  us :  — 

"  Heaven's  Sovereign  saves  all  beings  but  Himself 
That  hideous  sight,  a  naked  human  heart." 

Or  the  author  of  "  Don  Juan,"  telling  us  to  look  into 

"  Man's  heart,  and  view  the  hell  that 's  there !  " 

I  hope  I  am  quoting  correctly,  but  I  am  more  of  a 
scholar  in  Wordsworth  than  in  Byron.  Was  Parson 
Young's  own  heart  such  a  hideous  spectacle  to  himself  ? 
If  it  was,  he  had  better  have  stripped  off  his  surplice. 
No,  —  it  was  nothing  but  the  cant  of  his  calling.  In 
Byron  it  was  a  mood,  and  he  might  have  said  just  the 
opposite  thing  the  next  day,  as  he  did  in  his  two  de- 
scriptions of  the  Venus  de'  Medici.  That  picture  of 
old  Matthew  abides  in  the  memory,  and  makes  one 
think  better  of  his  kind.  What  nobler  tasks  has  the 
poet  than  to  exalt  the  idea  of  manhood,  and  to  make 
the  world  we  live  in  more  beautiful  ? 

We  have  two  or  three  young  people  with  us  who 
stand  a  fair  chance  of  furnishing  us  the  element  with- 
out which  life  and  tea-tables  alike  are  wanting  in 
interest.  We  are  all,  of  course,  watching  them,  and 
curious  to  know  whether  we  are  to  have  a  romance  or 
not.  Here  is  one  of  them ;  others  will  show  them- 
selves presently. 

I  cannot  say  just  how  old  the  Tutor  is,  but  I  do  not 
detect  a  gray  hair  in  his  head.  My  sight  is  not  so 
good  as  it  was,  however,  and  he  may  have  turned  the 
sharp  corner  of  thirty,  and  even  have  left  it  a  year 
or  two  behind  him.  More  probably  he  is  still  in  the 


50  OVER  THE   TEACUP8. 

twenties,  —  say  twenty-eight  or  twenty-nine.  He 
seems  young,  at  any  rate,  excitable,  enthusiastic,  im- 
aginative, but  at  the  same  time  reserved.  I  am  afraid 
that  he  is  a  poet.  When  I  say  "  I  am  afraid,"  you 
wonder  what  I  mean  by  the  expression.  I  may  take 
another  opportunity  to  explain  and  justify  it ;  I  will 
only  say  now  that  I  consider  the  Muse  the  most  dan- 
gerous of  sirens  to  a  young  man  who  has  his  way  to 
make  in  the  world.  Now  this  young  man,  the  Tutor, 
has,  I  believe,  a  future  before  him.  He  was  born  for 
a  philosopher,  —  so  I  read  his  horoscope,  —  but  he 
has  a  great  liking  for  poetry  and  can  write  well  in 
verse.  We  have  had  a  number  of  poems  offered  for 
our  entertainment,  which  I  have  commonly  been  re- 
quested to  read.  There  has  been  some  little  mystery 
about  their  authorship,  but  it  is  evident  that  they  are 
not  all  from  the  same  hand.  Poetry  is  as  contagious 
as  measles,  and  if  a  single  case  of  it  break  out  in  any 
social  circle,  or  in  a  school,  there  are  certain  to  be  a 
number  of  similar  cases,  some  slight,  some  serious,  and 
now  and  then  one  so  malignant  that  the  subject  of  it 
should  be  put  on  a  spare  diet  of  stationery,  say  from 
two  to  three  penfuls  of  ink  and  a  half  sheet  of  note- 
paper  per  diem.  If  any  of  our  poetical  contributions 
are  presentable,  the  reader  shall  have  a  chance  to  see 
them. 

It  must  be  understood  that  our  company  is  not  in- 
variably made  up  of  the  same  persons.  The  Mistress, 
as  we  call  her,  is  expected  to  be  always  in  her  place. 
I  make  it  a  rule  to  be  present.  The  Professor  is  al- 
most as  sure  to  be  at  the  table  as  I  am.  We  should 
hardly  know  what  to  do  without  Number  Five.  It 
takes  a  good  deal  of  tact  to  handle  such  a  little  assem- 
bly as  ours,  which  is  a  republic  on  a  small  scale,  for 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  51 

all  that  they  give  me  the  title  of  Dictator,  and  Num- 
ber Five  is  a  great  help  in  every  social  emergency. 
She  sees  when  a  discussion  tends  to  become  personal, 
and  heads  off  the  threatening  antagonists.  She  knows 
when  a  subject  has  been  knocking  about  long  enough, 
and  dexterously  shifts  the  talk  to  another  track.  It 
is  true  that  I  am  the  one  most  frequently  appealed  to 
as  the  highest  tribunal  in  doubtful  cases,  but  I  often 
care  more  for  Number  Five's  opinion  than  I  do  for 
my  own.  Who  is  this  Number  Five,  so  fascinating, 
so  wise,  so  full  of  knowledge,  and  so  ready  to  learn  ? 
She  is  suspected  of  being  the  anonymous  author  of  a 
book  which  produced  a  sensation  when  published,  not 
very  long  ago,  and  which  Jhose  who  read  are  very  apt 
to  read  a  second  time,  and  to  leave  on  their  tables  for 
frequent  reference.  But  we  have  never  asked  her.  I 
do  not  think  she  wants  to  be  famous.  How  she  comes 
to  be  unmarried  is  a  mystery  to  me  ;  it  must  be  that 
she  has  found  nobody  worth  caring  enough  for.  I  wish 
she  would  furnish  us  with  the  romance  which,  as  I  said, 
our  tea-table  needs  to  make  it  interesting.  Perhaps 
the  new-comer  will  make  love  to  her,  —  I  should  think 
it  possible  she  might  fancy  him. 

And  who  is  the  new-comer  ?  He  is  a  Counsellor 
and  a  Politician.  Has  a  good  war  record.  Is  about 
forty-five  years  old,  I  conjecture.  Is  engaged  in  a 
great  law  case  just  now.  Said  to  be  very  eloquent. 
Has  an  intellectual  head,  and  the  bearing  of  one  who 
has  commanded  a  regiment  or  perhaps  a  brigade. 
Altogether  an  attractive  person,  scholarly,  refined ; 
has  some  accomplishments  not  so  common  as  they 
might  be  in  the  class  we  call  gentlemen,  with  an  accent 
on  the  word. 

There  is  also  a  young  Doctor,  waiting  for  his  bald 
spot  to  come,  so  that  he  may  get  into  practice. 


62  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

We  have  two  young  ladies  at  the  table,  —  the  Eng- 
lish girl  referred  to  in  a  former  number,  and  an  Amer- 
ican girl  of  about  her  own  age.  Both  of  them  are 
students  in  one  of  those  institutions  —  I  am  not  sure 
whether  they  call  it  an  "  annex  "  or  not,  but  at  any 
rate  one  of  those  schools  where  they  teach  the  incom- 
prehensible sort  of  mathematics  and  other  bewildering 
branches  of  knowledge  above  the  common  level  of 
high-school  education.  They  seem  to  be  good  friends, 
and  form  a  very  pleasing  pair  when  they  walk  in  arm  in 
arm ;  nearly  enough  alike  to  seem  to  belong  together, 
different  enough  to  form  an  agreeable  contrast. 

Of  course  we  were  bound  to  have  a  Musician  at 
our  table,  and  we  have  one  who  sings  admirably,  and 
accompanies  himself,  or  one  or  more  of  our  ladies,  very 
frequently. 

Such  is  our  company  when  the  table  is  full.  But 
sometimes  only  half  a  dozen,  or  it  may  be  only  three 
or  four,  are  present.  At  other  times  we  have  a  visi- 
tor or  two,  either  in  the  place  of  one  of  our  habitual 
number,  or  in  addition  to  it.  We  have  the  elements, 
we  think,  of  a  pleasant  social  gathering,  —  different 
sexes,  ages,  pursuits,  and  tastes,  —  all  that  is  required 
for  a  "  symphony  concert "  of  conversation.  One  of 
the  curious  questions  which  might  well  be  asked  by 
those  who  had  been  with  us  on  different  occasions 
would  be,  "  How  many  poets  are  there  among  you  ?  " 
Nobody  can  answer  this  question.  It  is  a  point  of 
etiquette  with  us  not  to  press  our  inquiries  about  these 
anonymous  poems  too  sharply,  especially  if  any  of 
them  betray  sentiments  which  would  not  bear  rough 
handling. 

1  don't  doubt  that  the  different  personalities  at  our 
table  will  get  mixed  up  in  the  reader's  mind  if  he  is 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  53 

not  particularly  clear-headed.  That  happens  very  of- 
ten, much  oftener  than  all  would  be  willing  to  confess, 
in  reacting  novels  and  plays.  I  am  afraid  we  should 
get  a  good  deal  confused  even  in  reading  our  Shake- 
speare if  we  did  not  look  back  now  and  then  at  the 
dramatis  personce.  I  am  sure  that  I  am  very  apt  to 
confound  the  characters  in  a  moderately  interesting 
novel ;  indeed,  I  suspect  that  the  writer  is  often  no 
better  off  than  the  reader  in  the  dreary  middle  of  the 
story,  when  his  characters  have  all  made  their  appear- 
ance, and  before  they  have  reached  near  enough  to  the 
denoument  to  have  fixed  their  individuality  by  the 
position  they  have  arrived  at  in  the  chain  of  the 
narrative. 

My  reader  might  be  a  little  puzzled  when  he  read  that 
Number  Five  did  or  said  such  or  such  a  thing,  and 
ask,  "  Whom  do  you  mean  by  that  title  ?  I  am  not 
quite*  sure  that  I  remember."  Just  associate  her  with 
that  line  of  Emerson,  — 

"  Why  nature  loves  the  number  five,"  — 

and  that  will  remind  you  that  she  is  the  favorite  of 
our  table. 

You  cannot  forget  who  Number  Seven  is  if  I  inform 
you  that  he  specially  prides  himself  on  being  a  seventh 
son  of  a  seventh  son.  The  fact  of  such  a  descent  is 
supposed  to  carry  wonderful  endowments  with  it. 
Number  Seven  passes  for  a  natural  healer.  He  is 
looked  upon  as  a  kind  of  wizard,  and  is  lucky  in  liv- 
ing in  the  nineteenth  century  instead  of  the  sixteenth 
or  earlier.  How  much  confidence  he  feels  in  himself 
as  the  possessor  of  half -supernatural  gifts  I  cannot  say. 
I  think  his  peculiar  birthright  gives  him  a  certain 
confidence  in  his  whims  and  fancies  which  but  for 


54  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

that  he  would  hardly  feel.  After  this  explanation, 
when  I  speak  of  Number  Five  or  Number  Seven,  you 
will  know  to  whom  I  refer. 

The  company  are  very  frank  in  their  criticisms  of 
each  other.  "  I  did  not  like  that  expression  of  yours, 
planetary  foundlings"  said  the  Mistress.  "  It  seems 
to  me  that  it  is  too  like  atheism  for  a  good  Christian 
like  you  to  use." 

Ah,  my  dear  madam,  I  answered,  I  was  thinking 
of  the  elements  and  the  natural  forces  to  which  man 
was  born  an  almost  helpless  subject  in  theiudimentary 
stages  of  his  existence,  and  from  which  he  has  only 
partially  got  free  after  ages  upon  ages  of  warfare  with 
their  tyranny.  Think  what  hunger  forced  the  cave- 
man to  do !  Think  of  the  surly  indifference  of  the 
storms  that  swept  the  forest  and  the  waters,  the  earth- 
quake chasms  that  engulfed  him,  the  inundations'  that 
drowned  him  out  of  his  miserable  hiding-places,  the 
pestilences  that  lay  in  wait  for  him,  the  unequal  strife 
with  ferocious  animals !  I  need  not  sum  up  all  the 
wretchedness  that  goes  to  constitute  the  "  martyrdom 
of  man."  When  our  forefathers  came  to  this  wilder- 
ness as  it  then  was,  and  found  everywhere  the  bones 
of  the  poor  natives  who  had  perished  in  the  great 
plague  (which  our  Doctor  there  thinks  was  probably 
the  small-pox),  they  considered  this  destructive  mal- 
ady as  a  special  mark  of  providential  favor  for  them. 
How  about  the  miserable  Indians  ?  Were  they  any- 
thing but  planetary  foundlings  ?  No  !  Civilization  is 
a  great  foundling  hospital,  and  fortunate  are  all  those 
who  get  safely  into  the  creche  before  the  frost  or  the 
malaria  has  killed  them,  the  wild  beasts  or  the  venom- 
ous reptiles  worked  out  their  deadly  appetites  and 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  55 

instincts  upon  them.  The  very  idea  of  humanity 
seems  to  be  that  it  shall  take  care  of  itself  and  de- 
velop its  powers  in  the  "  struggle  for  life."  Whether 
we  approve  it  or  not,  if  we  can  judge  by  the  material 
record,  man  was  born  a  foundling,  and  fought  his  way 
as  he  best  might  to  that  kind  of  existence  which  we 
call  civilized,  —  one  which  a  considerable  part  of  the 
inhabitants  of  our  planet  have  reached. 

If  you  do  not  like  the  expression  planetary  found- 
lings, I  have  no  objection  to  your  considering  the  race 
as  put  out  to  nurse.  And  what  a  nurse  Nature  is ! 
She  gives  her  charge  a  hole  in  the  rocks  to  live  in,  ice 
for  his  pillow  and  snow  for  his  blanket,  in  one  part  of 
the  world ;  the  jungle  for  his  bedroom  in  another, 
with  the  tiger  for  his  watch-dog  and  the  cobra  as  his 
playfellow. 

Well,  I  said,  there  may  be  other  parts  of  the  uni- 
verse where  there  are  no  tigers  and  no  cobras.  It  is 
not  quite  certain  that  such  realms  of  creation  are  bet- 
ter off,  on  the  whole,  than  this  earthly  residence  of 
ours,  which  has  fought  its  way  up  to  the  development 
of  such  centres  of  civilization  as  Athens  and  Rome,  to 
such  personalities  as  Socrates,  as  Washington. 

"One  of  our  company  has  been  on  an  excursion 
among  the  celestial  bodies  of  our  system,  I  under- 
stand," said  the  Professor. 

Number  Five  colored.  "  Nothing  but  a  dream," 
she  said.  "The  truth  is,  I  had  taken  ether  in  the 
evening  for  a  touch  of  neuralgia,  and  it  set  my  imagi- 
nation at  work  in  a  way  quite  unusual  with  me.  I 
had  been  reading  a  number  of  books  about  an  ideal 
condition  of  society,  —  Sir  Thomas  More's  '  Utopia,' 
Lord  Bacon's  'New  Atlantis,'  and  another  of  more 


56  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

recent  date.  I  went  to  bed  with  my  brain  a  good 
deal  excited,  and  fell  into  a  deep  slumber,  in  which  I 
passed  through  some  experiences  so  singular  that,  on 
awaking,  I  put  them  down  on  paper.  I  don't  know 
that  there  is  anything  very  original  about  the  experi- 
ences I  have  recorded,  but  I  thought  them  worth  pre- 
serving. Perhaps  you  would  not  agree  with  me  in 
that  belief." 

"  If  Number  Five  will  give  us  a  chance  to  form  our 
own  judgment  about  her  dream  or  vision,  I  think  we 
shall  enjoy  it,"  said  the  Mistress.  "  She  knows  what 
will  please  The  Teacups  in  the  way  of  reading  as  well 
as  I  do  how  many  lumps  of  sugar  the  Professor  wants 
in  his  tea  and  how  many  I  want  in  mine." 

The  company  was  so  urgent  that  Number  Five  sent 
up-stairs  for  her  paper. 

Number  Five  reads  the  story  of  her  dream. 

It  cost  me  a  great  effort  to  set  down  the  words  of 
the  manuscript  from  which  I  am  reading.  My  dreams 
for  the  most  part  fade  away  so  soon  after  their  occur- 
rence that  I  cannot  recall  them  at  all.  But  in  this 
case  my  ideas  held  together  with  remarkable  tenacity. 
By  keeping  my  mind  steadily  upon  the  work,  I  gradu- 
ally unfolded  the  narrative  which  follows,  as  the  fa- 
mous Italian  antiquary  opened  one  of  those  fragile 
carbonized  manuscripts  found  in  the  ruins  of  Hercu- 
laneum  or  Pompeii. 

The  first  thing  I  remember  about  it  is  that  I  was 
floating  upward,  without  any  sense  of  effort  on  my 
part.  The  feeling  was  that  of  flying,  which  I  have 
often  had  in  dreams,  as  have  many  other  persons.  It 
was  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world,  —  a  semi- 
materialized  volition,  if  I  may  use  such  an  expression. 


OVER   THE  TEACUPS.  57 

At  the  first  moment  of  my  new  consciousness,  —  for  I 
seemed  to  have  just  emerged  from  a  deep  slumber,  — 
I  was  aware  that  there  was  a  companion  at  my  side. 
Nothing  could  be  more  gracious  than  the  way  in  which 
this  being  accosted  me.  I  will  speak  of  it  as  she.  be- 
cause there  was  a  delicacy,  a  sweetness,  a  divine  pu- 
rity, about  its  aspect  that  recalled  my  ideal  of  the 
loveliest  womanhood. 

"  I  am  your  companion  and  your  guide,"  this  being 
made  me  understand,  as  she  looked  at  me.  Some  fac- 
ulty of  which  I  had  never  before  been  conscious  had 
awakened  in  me,  and  I  needed  no  interpreter  to  ex- 
plain the  unspoken  language  of  my  celestial  attend- 
ant. 

"  You  are  not  yet  outside  of  space  and  time,"  she 
said,  "  and  I  am  going  with  you  through  some  parts 
of  the  phenomenal  or  apparent  universe,  —  what  you 
call  the  material  world.  We  have  plenty  of  what  you 
call  time  before  us,  and  we  will  take  our  voyage  lei- 
surely, looking  at  such  objects  of  interest  as  may  at- 
tract our  attention  as  we  pass.  The  first  thing  you 
will  naturally  wish  to  look  at  will  be  the  earth  you 
have  just  left.  This  is  about  the  right  distance,"  she 
said,  and  we  paused  in  our  flight. 

The  great  globe  we  had  left  was  rolling  beneath  us. 
No  eye  of  one  in  the  flesh  could  see  it  as  I  saw  or 
seemed  to  see  it.  No  ear  of  any  mortal  being  could 
hear  the  sounds  that  came  from  it  as  I  heard  or 
seemed  to  hear  them.  The  broad  oceans  unrolled 
themselves  before  me.  I  could  recognize  the  calm 
Pacific  and  the  stormy  Atlantic,  —  the  ships  that  dot- 
ted them,  the  white  lines  where  the  waves  broke  on 
the  shore,  —  frills  on  the  robes  of  the  continents,  —  so 
they  looked  to  my  woman's  perception ;  the  vast 


58  OVER   THE  TEACUPS. 

South  American  forests ;  the  glittering  icebergs  about 
the  poles  ;  the  snowy  mountain  ranges,  here  and  there 
a  summit  sending  up  fire  and  smoke ;  mighty  rivers, 
dividing  provinces  within  sight  of  each  other,  and 
making  neighbors  of  realms  thousands  of  miles  apart ; 
cities ;  light-houses  to  insure  the  safety  of  sea-going 
vessels,  and  war-ships  to  knock  them  to  pieces  and 
sink  them.  All  this,  and  infinitely  more,  showed  it- 
self to  me  during  a  single  revolution  of  the  sphere : 
twenty-four  hours  it  would  have  been,  if  reckoned  by 
earthly  measurements  of  time.  I  have  not  spoken  of 
the  sounds  I  heard  while  the  earth  was  revolving  un- 
der us.  The  howl  of  storms,  the  roar  and  clash  of 
waves,  the  crack  and  crash  of  the  falling  thunder- 
bolt, —  these  of  course  made  themselves  heard  as 
they  do  to  mortal  ears.  But  there  were  other  sounds 
which  enchained  my  attention  more  than  these  voices 
of  nature.  As  the  skilled  leader  of  an  orchestra 
hears  every  single  sound  from  each  member  of  the 
mob  of  stringed  and  wind  instruments,  and  above  all 
the  screech  of  the  straining  soprano,  so  my  sharpened 
perceptions  made  what  would  have  been  for  common 
mortals  a  confused  murmur  audible  to  me  as  com- 
pounded of  innumerable  easily  distinguished  sounds. 
Above  them  all  arose  one  continued,  unbroken,  ago- 
nizing cry.  It  was  the  voice  of  suffering  womanhood, 
—  a  sound  that  goes  up  day  and  night,  one  long  cho- 
rus of  tortured  victims. 

"  Let  us  get  out  of  reach  of  this,"  I  said  ;  and  we 
left  our  planet,  with  its  blank,  desolate  moon  staring 
at  it,  as  if  it  had  turned  pale  at  the  sights  and  sounds 
it  had  to  witness. 

Presently  the  gilded  dome  of  the  State  House, 
which  marked  our  starting-point,  came  into  view  for 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  59 

the  second  time,  and  I  knew  that  this  side-show  was 
over.  I  bade  farewell  to  the  Common  with  its  Cogs- 
well fountain,  and  the  Garden  with  its  last  awe-inspir- 
ing monument. 

"  Oh,  if  I  could  sometimes  revisit  these  beloved 
scenes  !  "  I  exclaimed. 

"  There  is  nothing  to  hinder  that  I  know  of,"  said 
my  companion.  "  Memory  and  imagination  as  you 
know  them  in  the  flesh  are  two  winged  creatures  with 
strings  tied  to  their  legs,  and  anchored  to  a  bodily 
weight  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  more  or  less. 
When  the  string  is  cut  you  can  be  where  you  wish  to 
be,  —  not  merely  a  part  of  you,  leaving  the  rest  be- 
hind, but  the  whole  of  you.  Why  should  n't  you 
want  to  revisit  your  old  home  sometimes  ?  " 

I  was  astonished  at  the  human  way  in  which  my 
guide  conversed  with  me.  It  was  always. on  the  basis 
of  my  earthly  habits,  experiences,  and  limitations. 
"  Your  solar  system,"  she  said,  "  is  a  very  small  part 
of  the  universe,  but  you  naturally  feel  a  curiosity 
about  the  bodies  which  constitute  it  and  about  their 
inhabitants.  There  is  your  moon  :  a  bare  and  deso- 
late-looking place  it  is,  and  well  it  may  be,  for  it  has 
no  respirable  atmosphere,  and  no  occasion  for  one. 
The  Lunites  do  not  breathe  ;  they  live  without  waste 
and  without  supply.  You  look  as  if  you  do  not  un- 
derstand this.  Yet  your  people  have,  as  you  well 
know,  what  they  call  incandescent  lights  everywhere. 
You  would  have  said  there  can  be  no  lamp  without  oil 
or  gas,  or  other  combustible  substance,  to  feed  it ;  and 
yet  you  see  a  filament  which  sheds  a  light  like  that  of 
noon  all  around  it,  and  does  not  waste  at  all.  So  the 
Lunites  live  by  influx  of  divine  energy,  just  as  the 
incandescent  lamp  glows,  —  glows,  and  is  not  con- 


60  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

sumed  ;  receiving  its  life,  if  we  may  call  it  so,  from 
the  central  power,  which  wears  the  unpleasant  name 
of  *  dynamo.' " 

The  Lunites  appeared  to  me  as  pale  phosphorescent 
figures  of  ill-defined  outline,  lost  in  their  own  halos,  as 
it  were.  I  could  not  help  thinking  of  Shelley's 

"  maiden 
With  white  fire  laden." 

But  as  the  Lunites  were  after  all  but  provincials,  as 
are  the  tenants  of  all  the  satellites,  I  did  not  care  to 
contemplate  them  for  any  great  length  of  time. 

I  do  not  remember  much  about  the  two  planets  that 
came  next  to  our  own,  except  the  beautiful  rosy  atmos- 
phere of  one  and  the  huge  bulk  of  the  other.  Pres- 
ently, we  found  ourselves  within  hailing  distance  of 
another  celestial  body,  which  I  recognized  at  once,  by 
the  rings  which  girdled  it,  as  the  planet  Saturn.  A 
dingy,  dull-looking  sphere  it  was  in  its  appearance. 
"  We  will  tie  up  here  for  a  while, "  said  my  attendant. 
The  easy,  familiar  way  in  which  she  spoke  surprised 
and  pleased  me. 

Why,  said  I,  —  The  Dictator,  —  what  is  there  to 
prevent  beings  of  another  order  from  being  as  cheer- 
ful, as  social,  as  good  companions,  as  the  very  liveliest 
of  God's  creatures  whom  we  have  known  in  the  flesh  ? 
Is  it  impossible  for  an  archangel  to  smile  ?  Is  such  a 
phenomenon  as  a  laugh  never  heard  except  in  our  little 
sinful  corner  of  the  universe  ?  Do  you  suppose,  that 
when  the  disciples  heard  from  the  lips  of  their  Master 
the  play  of  words  on  the  name  of  Peter,  there  was  no 
smile  of  appreciation  on  the  bearded  faces  of  those 
holy  men?  From  any  other  lips  we  should  have  called 
this  pleasantry  a  — 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  61 

Number  Five  shook  her  head  very  slightly,  and 
gave  me  a  look  that  seemed  to  say,  "Don't  frighten 
the  other  Teacups.  We  don't  call  things  by  the 
names  that  belong  to  them  when  we  deal  with  celestial 
subjects." 

We  tied  up,  as  my  attendant  playfully  called  our 
resting,  so  near  the  planet  that  I  could  know  —  I  will 
not  say  see  and  hear,  but  apprehend  —  all  that  was 
going  on  in  that  remote  sphere  ;  remote,  as  we  who 
live  in  what  we  have  been  used  to  consider  the  centre 
of  the  rational  universe  regard  it.  What  struck  me 
at  once  was  the  deadness  of  everything  I  looked  upon. 
Dead,  uniform  color  of  surface  and  surrounding  at- 
mosphere. Dead  complexion  of  all  the  inhabitants. 
Dead-looking  trees,  dead-looking  grass,  no  flowers  to 
be  seen  anywhere. 

"  What  is  the  meaning  of  all  this  ?  "  I  said  to  my 
guide. 

She  smiled  good-naturedly,  and  replied,  "  It  is  a 
forlorn  home  for  anything  above  a  lichen  or  a  toad- 
stool ;  but  that  is  no  wonder,  when  you  know  what 
the  air  is  which  they  breathe.  It  is  pure  nitrogen." 

The  Professor  spoke  up.  "That  can't  be, madam," 
he  said.  "  The  spectroscope  shows  the  atmosphere  of 
Saturn  to  be  —  no  matter,  I  have  forgotten  what ;  but 
it  was  not  pure  nitrogen,  at  any  rate." 

Number  Five  is  never  disconcerted.  "Will  you  tell 
me, "  she  said,  "  where  you  have  found  any  account  of 
the  bands  and  lines  in  the  spectrum  of  dream-nitrogen? 
I  should  be  so  pleased  to  become  acquainted  with 
them." 

The  Professor  winced  a  little,  and  asked  Delilah, 


62  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

the  handmaiden,  to  pass  a  plate  of  muffins  to  him. 
The  dream  had  carried  him  away,  and  he  thought 
for  the  moment  that  he  was  listening  to  a  scientific 
paper. 

Of  course,  my  companion  went  on  to  say,  the  bodily 
constitution  of  the  Saturnians  is  wholly  different  from 
that  of  air-breathing,  that  is  oxygen-breathing,  human 
beings.  They  are  the  dullest,  slowest,  most  torpid  of 
mortal  creatures. 

All  this  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  when  you  remem- 
ber the  inert  characteristics  of  nitrogen.  There  are 
in  some  localities  natural  springs  which  give  out  slen- 
der streams  of  oxygen.  You  will  learn  by  and  by 
what  use  the  Saturnians  make  of  this  dangerous  gas, 
which,  as  you  recollect,  constitutes  about  one  fifth  of 
your  own  atmosphere.  Saturn  has  large  lead  mines, 
but  no  other  metal  is  found  on  this  planet.  The  in- 
habitants have  nothing  else  to  make  tools  of,  except 
stones  and  shells.  The  mechanical  arts  have  there- 
fore made  no  great  progress  among  them.  Chopping 
down  a  tree  with  a  leaden  axe  is  necessarily  a  slow 
process. 

So  far  as  the  Saturnians  can  be  said  to  have  any 
pride  in  anything,  it  is  in  the  absolute  level  which 
characterizes  their  political  and  social  order.  They 
profess  to  be  the  only  true  republicans  in  the  solar 
system.  The  fundamental  articles  of  their  Constitu- 
tion are  these :  — 

All  Saturnians  are  born  equal,  live  equal,  and  die 
equal. 

All  Saturnians  are  born  free,  —  free,  that  is,  to 
obey  the  rules  laid  down  for  the  regulation  of  their 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  68 

conduct,  pursuits,  and  opinions,  free  to  be  married  to 
the  person  selected  for  them  by  the  physiological  sec- 
tion of  ihe  government,  and  free  to  die  at  such  proper 
period  of  life  as  may  best  suit  the  convenience  and 
general  welfare  of  the  community. 

The  one  great  industrial  product  of  Saturn  is  the 
bread-root.  The  Saturnians  find  this  wholesome  and 
palatable  enough ;  and  it  is  well  they  do,  as  they  have 
no  other  vegetable.  It  is  what  I  should  call  a  most 
uninteresting  kind  of  eatable,  but  it  serves  as  food  and 
drink,  having  juice  enough,  so  that  they  get  along 
without  water.  They  have  a  tough,  dry  grass,  which, 
matted  together,  furnishes  them  with  clothes  suffi- 
ciently warm  for  their  cold-blooded  constitutions,  and 
more  than  sufficiently  ugly. 

A  piece  of  ground  large  enough  to  furnish  bread- 
root  for  ten  persons  is  allotted  to  each  head  of  a  house- 
hold, allowance  being  made  for  the  possible  increase 
of  families.  This,  however,  is  not  a  very  important 
consideration,  as  the  Saturnians  are  not  a  prolific  race. 
The  great  object  of  life  being  the  product  of  the 
largest  possible  quantity  of  bread-roots,  and  women 
not  being  so  capable  in  the  fields  as  the  stronger  sex, 
females  are  considered  an  undesirable  addition  to  so- 
ciety. The  one  thing  the  Saturnians  dread  and  abhor 
is  inequality.  The  whole  object  of  their  laws  and 
customs  is  to  maintain  the  strictest  equality  in  every- 
thing, —  social  relations,  property,  so  far  as  they  can 
be  said  to  have  anything  which  can  be  so  called,  mode 
of  living,  dress,  and  all  other  matters.  It  is  their 
boast  that  nobody  ever  starved  under  their  govern- 
ment. Nobody  goes  in  rags,  for  the  coarse-fibred 
grass  from  which  they  fabricate  their  clothes  is  very 


(>4  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

durable.  (I  confess  I  wondered  how  a  woman  could 
live  in  Saturn.  They  have  no  looking-glasses.  There 
is  no  such  article  as  a  ribbon  known  among  them.  All 
their  clothes  are  of  one  pattern.  I  noticed  that  there 
were  no  pockets  in  any  of  their  garments,  and  learned 
that  a  pocket  would  be  considered  prima  facie  evi- 
dence of  theft,  as  no  honest  person  would  have  use  for 
such  a  secret  receptacle.)  Before  the  revolution  which 
established  the  great  law  of  absolute  and  lifelong 
equality,  the  inhabitants  used  to  feed  at  their  own  pri- 
vate tables.  Since  the  regeneration  of  society  all 
meals  are  taken  in  common.  The  last  relic  of  bar- 
barism was  the  use  of  plates,  —  one  or  even  more  to 
each  individual.  This  "  odious  relic  of  an  effete  civi- 
lization, "  as  they  called  it,  has  long  been  superseded 
by  oblong  hollow  receptacles,  one  of  which  is  allotted 
to  each  twelve  persons.  A  great  riot  took  place  when 
an  attempt  was  made  by  some  fastidious  and  exclusive 
egotists  to  introduce  partitions  which  should  partially 
divide  one  portion  of  these  receptacles  into  individual 
compartments.  The  Saturnians  boast  that  they  have 
no  paupers,  no  thieves,  none  of  those  fictitious  values 
called  money,  —  all  which  things,  they  hear,  are  known 
in  that  small  Saturn  nearer  the  sun  than  the  great 
planet  which  is  their  dwelling-place. 

"  I  suppose  that  now  they  have  levelled  everything 
they  are  quiet  and  contented.  Have  they  any  of  those 
uneasy  people  called  reformers  ?  " 

"  Indeed  they  have,"  said  my  attendant.  "  There 
are  the  Orthobrachians,  who  declaim  against  the 
shameful  abuse  of  the  left  arm  and  hand,  and  insist 
on  restoring  their  perfect  equality  with  the  right. 
Then  there  are  Isopodic  societies,  which  insist  on 
bringing  back  the  original  equality  of  the  upper  and 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 


*b5 


lower  limbs.  If  you  can  believe  it,  they  actually  prac- 
tise going  on  all  fours,  —  generally  in  a  private  way, 
a  few  of  them  together,  but  hoping  to  bring  the  world 
round  to  them  in  the  near  future." 

Here  I  had  to  stop  and  laugh. 

"  I  should  think  life  might  be  a  little  dull  in  Sat= 
urn,"  I  said. 

"  It  is  liable  to  that  accusation,"  she  answered,. 
"  Do  you  notice  how  many  people  you  meet  with  their 
mouths  stretched  wide  open  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  I  said,  "  and  I  do  not  know  what  to  make 
of  it.  I  should  think  every  fourth  or  fifth  person  had 
his  mouth  open  in  that  way." 

"  They  are  suffering  from  the  endemic  disease  of 
their  planet,  prolonged  and  inveterate  gaping  or  yawn- 
ing, which  has  ended  in  dislocation  of  the  lower  jaw. 
After  a  time  this  becomes  fixed,  and  requires  a  diffi- 
cult surgical  operation  to  restore  it  to  its  place." 

It  struck  me  that,  in  spite  of  their  boast  that  they 
have  no  paupers,  no  thieves,  no  money,  they  were  a 
melancholy-looking  set  of  beings. 

"  What  are  their  amusements  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Intoxication  and  suicide  are  their  chief  recreations. 
They  have  a  way  of  mixing  the  oxygen  which  issues 
in  small  jets  from  certain  natural  springs  with  their 
atmospheric  nitrogen  in  the  proportion  of  about  twenty 
per  cent,  which  makes  very  nearly  the  same  thing  as 
the  air  of  your  planet.  But  to  the  Saturniaus  the 
mixture  is  highly  intoxicating,  and  is  therefore  a  re- 
lief to  the  monotony  of  their  every-day  life.  Thk 
mixture  is  greatly  sought  after,  but  hard  to  obtain,  a£ 
the  sources  of  oxygen  are  few  and  scanty.  It  shortens 
the  lives  of  those  who  have  recourse  to  it ;  but  if  it 
takes  too  long,  they  have  other  ways  of  escaping  from 


g§  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

a  life  which  cuts  and  dries  everything  for  its  miserable 
subjects,  defeats  all  the  natural  instincts,  confounds 
all  individual  characteristics,  and  makes  existence  such 
a  colossal  bore,  as  your  worldly  people  say,  that  self- 
destruction  becomes  a  luxury." 

Number  Five  stopped  here. 

Your  imaginary  wholesale  Shakerdom  is  all  very 
fine,  said  I.  Your  Utopia,  your  New  Atlantis,  and 
the  rest  are  pretty  to  look  at.  But  your  philosophers 
are  treating  the  world  of  living  souls  as  if  they  were, 
each  of  them,  playing  a  game  of  solitaire,  —  all  the 
pegs  and  all  the  holes  alike.  Life  is  a  very  different 
sort  of  game.  It  is  a  game  of  chess,  and  not  of  soli- 
taire, nor  even  of  checkers.  The  men  are  not  all  pawns, 
but  you  have  your  knights,  bishops,  rooks,. —  yes, 
your  king  and  queen,  —  to  be  provided  for.  Not  with 
these  names,  of  course,  but  all  looking  for  their  proper 
places,  and  having  their  own  laws  and  modes  of  action. 
You  can  play  solitaire  with  the  members  of  your  own 
family  for  pegs,  if  you  like,  and  if  none  of  them  rebel. 
You  can  play  checkers  with  a  little  community  of 
meek,  like-minded  people.  But  when  it  comes  to  the 
handling  of  a  great  state,  you  will  find  that  nature  has 
emptied  a  box  of  chessmen  before  you,  and  you  must 
play  with  them  so  as  to  give  each  its  proper  move, 
or  sweep  them  off  the  board,  and  come  back  to  the 
homely  game  such  as  I  used  to  see  played  with  beans 
and  kernels  of  corn  on  squares  marked  upon  the  back 
of  the  kitchen  bellows. 

It  was  curious  to  see  how  differently  Number  Five's 
narrative  was  received  by  the  different  listeners  in 
our  circle.  Number  Five  herself  said  she  supposed 


OVER   THE  TEACUPS.  67 

she  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  its  absurdities,  but  she  did 
not  know  that  it  was  much  sillier  than  dreams  often 
are,  ant!  she  thought  it  might  amuse  the  company. 
She  was  herself  always  interested  by  these  ideal  pic- 
tures of  society.  But  it  seemed  to  her  that  life  must 
be  dull  in  any  of  them,  and  with  that  idea  in  her  head 
her  dreaming  fancy  had  drawn  these  pictures. 

The  Professor  was  interested  in  her  conception  of 
the  existence  of  the  Lunites  without  waste,  and  the 
death  in  life  of  the  nitrogen-breathing  Saturnians. 
Dream-chemistry  was  a  new  subject  to  him.  Perhaps 
Number  Five  would  give  him  some  lessons  in  it, 

At  this  she  smiled,  and  said  she  was  afraid  she  could 
not  teach  him  anything,  but  if  he  would  answer  a  few 
questions  in  matter-of-fact  chemistry  which  had  puz- 
zled her  she  would  be  vastly  obliged  to  him. 

"  You  must  come  to  my  laboratory,"  said  the  Pro- 
fessor. 

"  I  will  come  to-morrovr,"  said  Number  Five. 

Oh,  yes !  Much  laboratory  work  they  will  do ! 
Play  of  mutual  affinities.  Amalgamates.  No  freezing 
mixtures,  I  '11  warrant ! 

Why  should  n't  we  get  a  romance  out  of  all  this, 
hey? 

But  Number  Five  looks  as  innocent  as  a  lamb,  and 
as  brave  as  a  lion.  She  does  not  care  a  copper  for  the 
looks  that  are  going  round  The  Teacups. 

Our  Doctor  was  curious  about  those  cases  of  an- 
chylosis, as  he  called  it,  of  the  lower  jaw.  He  thought 
it  a  quite  possible  occurrence.  Both  the  young  girls 
thought  the  dream  gave  a  very  hard  view  of  the  opti- 
mists, who  look  forward  to  a  reorganization  of  society 


6g  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

which  shall  rid  mankind  of  the  terrible  evils  of  over- 
crowding and  competition. 

Number  Seven  was  quite  excited  about  the  matter. 
He  had  himself  drawn  up  a  plan  for  a  new  social  ar- 
rangement. He  had  shown  it  to  the  legal  gentleman 
who  has  lately  joined  us.  This  gentleman  thought  it 
well-intended,  but  that  it  would  take  one  constable  to 
every  three  inhabitants  to  enforce  its  provisions. 

I  said  the  dream  could  do  no  harm  ;  it  was  too  out- 
rageously improbable  to  come  home  to  anybody's  feel- 
ings. Dreams  were  like  broken  mosaics,  —  the  sepa- 
rated stones  might  here  and  there  make  parts  of  pic- 
tures. If  one  found  a  caricature  of  himself  made  out 
of  the  pieces  which  had  accidentally  come  together,  he 
would  smile  at  it,  knowing  that  it  was  an  accidental 
effect  with  no  malice  in  it.  If  any  of  you  really  be- 
lieve in  a  working  Utopia,  why  not  join  the  Shakers, 
and  convert  the  world  to  this  mode  of  life  ?  Celibacy 
alone  would  cure  a  great  many  of  the  evils  you  com- 
plain of. 

I  thought  this  suggestion  seemed  to  act  rather  un- 
favorably upon  the  ladies  of  our  circle.  The  two 
Annexes  looked  inquiringly  at  each  other.  Number 
Five  looked  smilingly  at  them.  She  evidently  thought 
't  was  time  to  change  the  subject  of  conversation,  for 
she  turned  to  me  and  said,  "  You  promised  to  read  us 
the  poem  you  read  before  your  old  classmates  the 
other  evening." 

I  will  fulfill  my  promise,  I  said.  We  felt  that  this 
might  probably  be  our  last  meeting  as  a  Class.  The 
personal  reference  is  to  our  greatly  beloved  and  hon 
ored  classmate,  James  Freeman  Clarke. 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS,  69 


AFTER  THE  CURFEW. 

The  Play  is  over.  While  the  light 
Yet  lingers  in  the  darkening  hall, 

I  come  to  say  a  last  Good-night 
Before  the  final  Exeunt  all. 

We  gathered  once,  a  joyous  throng : 
The  jovial  toasts  went  gayly  round ; 

With  jest,  and  laugh,  and  shout,  and  song, 
We  made  the  floors  and  walls  resound. 

We  come  with  feeble  steps  and  slow, 

A  little  band  of  four  or  five, 
Left  from  the  wrecks  of  long  ago, 

Still  pleased  to  find  ourselves  alive. 

Alive  !  How  living,  too,  are  they 
Whose  memories  it  is  ours  to  share ! 

Spread  the  long  table's  full  array, — 
There  sits  a  ghost  in  every  chair ! 

One  breathing  form  no  more,  alas ! 

Amid  our  slender  group  we  see  ; 
With  him  we  still  remained  "The  Class,"- 

Without  his  presence  what  are  we  ? 

The  hand  we  ever  loved  to  clasp,  — 

That  tireless  hand  which  knew  no  rest,  — 

Loosed  from  affection's  clinging  grasp, 
Lies  nerveless  on  the  peaceful  breast. 

The  beaming  eye,  the  cheering  voice, 
That  lent  to  life  a  generous  glow, 

Whose  every  meaning  said  "  Rejoice," 
We  see,  we  hear,  no  more  below. 

The  air  seems  darkened  by  his  loss, 

Earth's  shadowed  features  look  less  fair,, 

And  heavier  weighs  the  daily  cross 
His  willing  shoulders  helped  us  bear. 


Why  mourn  that  we,  the  favored  few 
Whom  grasping  Time  so  long  has  spared 


70  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

Life's  sweet  illusions  to  pursue, 

The  common  lot  of  age  have  shared  ? 

In  every  pulse  of  Friendship's  heart 
There  breeds  unf elt  a  throb  of  pain,  — 

One  hour  must  rend  its  links  apart, 
Though  years  on  years  have  forged  the  chain. 


So  ends  "  The  Boys,"  —  a  lifelong  play. 

We  too  must  hear  the  Prompter's  call 
To  fairer  scenes  and  brighter  day : 

Farewell !     I  let  the  curtain  fall. 


IV. 


IF  the  reader  thinks  that  all  these  talking  Teacups 
came  together  by  mere  accident,  as  people  meet  at  a 
boarding-house,  I  may  as  well  tell  him  at  once  that  he 
is  mistaken.  If  he  thinks  I  am  going  to  explain  how 
it  is  that  he  finds  them  thus  brought  together,  — 
whether  they  form  a  secret  association,  whether  they 
are  the  editors  of  this  or  that  periodical,  whether  they 
are  connected  with  some  institution,  and  so  on,  —  I 
must  disappoint  him.  It  is  enough  that  he  finds  them 
in  each  other's  company,  a  very  mixed  -assembly,  of 
different  sexes,  ages,  and  pursuits ;  and  if  there  is  a 
certain  mystery  surrounds  their  meetings,  he  must  not 
be  surprised.  Does  he  suppose  we  want  to  be  known 
and  talked  about  in  public  as  "  Teacups  "  ?  No ;  so 
far  as  we  give  to  the  community  some  records  of  the 
talks  at  our  table  our  thoughts  become  public  prop- 
erty, but  the  sacred  personality  of  every  Teacup  must 
be  properly  respected.  If  any  wonder  at  the  presence 
of  one  of  our  number,  whose  eccentricities  might  seem 
to  render  him  an  undesirable  associate  of  the  company, 
he  should  remember  that  some  people  may  have  rela- 
tives whom  they  feel  bound  to  keep  their  eye  on;  be- 
sides, the  cracked  Teacup  brings  out  the  ring  of  the 
sound  ones  as  nothing  else  does.  Remember  also  that 
the  soundest  teacup  does  not  always  hold  the  best  tea, 
nor  the  cracked  teacup  the  worst. 

This  is  a  hint  to  the  reader,  who  is  not  expected  to 


72  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

be  too  curious  about  the  individual  Teacups  constitut- 
ing our  unorganized  association. 

The  Dictator  Discourses. 

I  have  been  reading  Balzac's  Pe.au  de  Chagrin. 
You  have  all  read  the  story,  I  hope,  for  it  is  the  first 
of  his  wonderful  romances  which  fixed  the  eyes  of  the 
reading  world  upon  him,  and  is  a  most  fascinating  if 
somewhat  fantastic  tale.  A  young  man  becomes  the 
possessor  of  a  certain  magic  skin,  the  peculiarity  of 
which  is  that,  while  it  gratifies  every  wish  formed  by 
its  possessor,  it  shrinks  in  all  its  dimensions  each  time 
that  a  wish  is  gratified.  The  young  man  makes  every 
effort  to  ascertain  the  cause  of  its  shrinking ;  invokes 
the  aid  of  the  physicist,  the  chemist,  the  student  of 
natural  history,  but  all  in  vain.  He  draws  a  red  line 
around  it.  That  same  day  he  indulges  a  longing  for 
a  certain  object.  The  next  morning  there  is  a  little 
interval  between  the  red  line  and  the  skin,  close  to 
which  it  was  traced.  So  always,  so  inevitably.  As 
he  lives  on,  satisfying  one  desire,  one  passion,  after 
another,  the  process  of  shrinking  continues.  A  mor- 
tal disease  sets  in,  which  keeps  pace  with  the  shrink- 
ing skin,  and  his  life  and  his  talisman  come  to  an  end 
together. 

One  would  say  that  such  a  piece  of  integument  was 
hardly  a  desirable  possession.  And  yet,  how  many  of 
us  have  at  this  very  moment  a  peau  de  chagrin  of  our 
own,  diminishing  with  every  costly  wish  indulged,  and 
incapable,  like  the  magical  one  of  the  story,  of  being 
arrested  in  its  progress  ! 

Need  I  say  that  I  refer  to  those  coupon  bonds. 
issued  in  the  days  of  eight  and  ten  per  cent  interest. 
and  gradually  narrowing  as  they  drop  their  semi- 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  78 

annual  slips  of  paper,  which  represent  wishes  to  be 
realized,  as  the  roses  let  fall  their  leaves  in  July,  as 
the  icicles  melt  away  in  the  thaw  of  January  ? 

How  beautiful  was  the  coupon  bond,  arrayed  in  its 
golden  raiment  of  promises  to  pay  at  certain  stated 
intervals,  for  a  goodly  number  of  coming  years ! 
What  annual  the  horticulturist  can  show  will  bear 
comparison  with  this  product  of  auricultural  industry, 
which  has  flowered  in  midsummer  and  midwinter  for 
twenty  successive  seasons  ?  And  now  the  last  of  its 
blossoms  is  to  be  plucked,  and  the  bare  stem,  stripped 
of  its  ever  maturing  and  always  welcome  appendages, 
is  reduced  to  the  narrowest  conditions  of  reproductive 
existence.  Such  is  the  fate  of  the  financial  peau  de 
chagrin.  Pity  the  poor  fractional  capitalist,  who  has 
just  managed  to  live  on  the  eight  per  cent  of  his  cou- 
pon bonds.  The  shears  of  Atropos  were  not  more 
fatal  to  human  life  than  the  long  scissors  which  cut 
the  last  coupon  to  the  lean  proprietor,  whose  slice  of 
dry  toast  it  served  to  flatter  with  oleomargarine.  Do 
you  wonder  that  my  thoughts  took  the  poetical  form, 
in  the  contemplation  of  these  changes  and  their  melan- 
choly consequences?  If  the  entire  poem,  of  several 
hundred  lines,  was  "  declined  with  thanks  "  by  an  un- 
feeling editor,  that  is  no  reason  why  you  should  not 
hear  a  verse  or  two  of  it. 

THE  PEAU  DE  CHAGRIN  OF  STATE  STREET. 

How  beauteous  is  the  bond 
In  the  manifold  array 
Of  its  promises  to  pay, 
While  the  eight  per  cent  it  gives 
And  the  rate  at  which  one  lives 
Correspond ! 


74  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

But  at  last  the  bough  is  bare 
Where  the  coupons  one  by  one 
Through  their  ripening  days  have  run, 
And  the  bond,  a  beggar  now, 
Seeks  investment  anyhow, 
Anywhere ! 

The  Mistress  commonly  contents  herself  with  the 

general  supervision  of  the   company,   only  now  and 

then  taking  an  active  part  in  the  conversation.     She 

»   started  a  question  the  other  evening  which  set  some  of 

us  thinking. 

"  Why  is  it,"  she  said,  "  that  there  is  so  common 
and  so  intense  a  desire  for  poetical  reputation  ?  It 
seems  to  me  that,  if  I  were  a  man,  I  had  rather  have 
done  something  worth  telling  of  than  make  verses 
about  what  other  people  had  done." 

"  You  agree  with  Alexander  the  Great,"  said  the 
Professor.  "  You  would  prefer  the  fame  of  Achilles 
to  that  of  Homer,  who  told  the  story  of  his  wrath  and 
its  direful  consequences.  I  am  afraid  that  I  should 
hardly  agree  with  you.  Achilles  was  little  better  than 
a  Choctaw  brave.  I  won't  quote  Horace's  line  which 
characterizes  him  so  admirably,  for  I  will  take  it  for 
granted  that  you  all  know  it.  He  was  a  gentleman, 
—  so  is  a  first-class  Indian,  —  a  very  noble  gentleman 
in  point  of  courage,  lofty  bearing,  courtesy,  but  an 
unsoaped,  ill-clad,  turbulent,  high-tempered  young  fel- 
low, looked  up  to  by  his  crowd  very  much  as  the 
champion  of  the  heavy  weights  is  looked  up  to  by  his 
gang  of  blackguards.  Alexander  himself  was  not 
much  better,  —  a  foolish,  fiery  young  madcap.  How 
often  is  he  mentioned  except  as  a  warning  ?  His  best 
record  is  that  he  served  to  point  a  moral  as  '  Macedo- 
nia's madman/  He  made  a  figure,  it  is  true,  in  Dry- 


OVER    THE   TEACUPS.  75 

den's  great  Ode,  but  what  kind  of  a  figure?  He 
got  drunk,  —  in  very  bad  company,  too,  —  and  then 
turned 'fire-bug.  He  had  one  redeeming  point,  —  he 
did  value  his  Homer,  and  slept  with  the  Iliad  under 
his  pillow.  A  poet  like  Homer  seems  to  me  worth  a 
dozen  such  fellows  as  Achilles  and  Alexander." 

"  Homer  is  all  very  well  for  those  that  can  read 
him,"  said  Number  Seven,  "  but  the  fellows  that  tag 
verses  together  nowadays  are  mostly  fools.  That's 
my  opinion.  I  wrote  some  verses  once  myself,  but  I 
had  been  sick  and  was  very  weak ;  had  n't  strength 
enough  to  write  in  prose,  I  suppose." 

This  aggressive  remark  caused  a  little  stir  at  our 
tea-table.  For  you  must  know,  if  I  have  not  told  you 
already,  there  are  suspicions  that  we  have  more  than 
one  "  poet  "  at  our  table.  I  have  already  confessed 
that  I  do  myself  indulge  in  verse  now  and  then,  and 
have  given  my  readers  a  specimen  of  my  work  in  that 
line.  But  there  is  so  much  difference  of  character  in 
the  verses  which  are  produced  at  our  table,  without 
any  signature,  that  I  feel  quite  sure  there  are  at  least 
two  or  three  other  contributors  besides  myself.  There 
is  a  tall,  old-fashioned  silver  urn,  a  sugar-bowl  of  the 
period  of  the  Empire,  in  which  the  poems  sent  to  be 
read  are  placed  by  unseen  hands.  When  the  proper 
moment  arrives,  I  lift  the  cover  of  the  urn  and  take 
out  any  manuscript  it  may  contain.  If  conversation 
is  going  on  and  the  company  are  in  a  talking  mood,  I 
replace  the  manuscript  or  manuscripts,  clap  on  the 
cover,  and  wait  until  there  is  a  moment's  quiet  before 
taking  it  off  again.  I  might  guess  the  writers  some- 
times by  the  handwriting,  but  there  is  more  trouble 
taken  to  disguise  the  chirography  than  I  choose  to 
take  to  identify  it  as  that  of  any  particular  member 
of  our  company. 


76  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

The  turn  the  conversation  took,  especially  the  slash- 
ing onslaught  of  Number  Seven  on  the  writers  of 
verse,  set  me  thinking  and  talking  about  the  matter. 
Number  Five  turned  on  the  stream  of  my  discourse 
by  a  question. 

"  You  receive  a  good  many  volumes  of  verse,  dc 
you  not  ? "  she  said,  with  a  look  which  implied  that 
she  knew  I  did. 

I  certainly  do,  I  answered.  My  table  aches  with 
them.  My  shelves  groan  with  them.  Think  of  what 
a  fuss  Pope  made  about  his  trials,  when  he  complained 

that 

"  All  Bedlam  or  Parnassus  is  let  out **  ! 

"AVhat  were  the  numbers  of  the 

"  Mob  of  gentlemen  who  wrote  with  ease  " 

to  that  great  multitude  of  contributors  to  our  maga- 
zines, and  authors  of  little  volumes  —  sometimes, 
alas !  big  ones  —  of  verse,  which  pour  out  of  the 
press,  not  weekly,  but  daily,  and  at  such  a  rate  of  in- 
crease that  it  seems  as  if  before  long  every  hour 
would  bring  a  book,  or  at  least  an  article  which  is  to 
grow  into  a  book  by  and  by  ? 

I  thanked  Heaven,  the  other  day,  that  I  was  not  a 
critic.  These  attenuated  volumes  of  poetry  in  fancy 
bindings  open  their  covers  at  one  like  so  many  little 
unfledged  birds,  and  one  does  so  long  to  drop  a  worm 
in,  —  a  worm  in  the  shape  of  a  kind  word  for  the 
poor  fledgling !  But  what  a  desperate  business  it  is 
to  deal  with  this  army  of  candidates  for  immortality ! 
I  have  often  had  something  to  say  about  them,  and  I 
may  be  saying  over  the  same  things  ;  but  if  I  do  not 
remember  what  I  have  said,  it  is  not  very  likely  that 
my  reader  will ;  if  he  does,  he  will  find,  I  am  very 
sure,  that  I  say  it  a  little  differently. 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  77 

What  astonishes  me  is  that  this  enormous  mass  of 
commonplace  verse,  which  burdens  the  postman  who 
brings  "it,  which  it  is  a  serious  task  only  to  get  out  of 
its  wrappers  and  open  in  two  or  three  places,  is  on  the 
whole  of  so  good  an  average  quality.  The  dead  level 
of  mediocrity  is  in  these  days  a  table-land,  a  good 
deal  above  the  old  sea-level  of  laboring  incapacity. 
Sixty  years  ago  verses  made  a  local  reputation,  which 
verses,  if  offered  to-day  to  any  of  our  first-class  mag- 
azines, would  go  straight  into  the  waste-basket.  To 
write  "  poetry  "  was  an  art  and  mystery  in  which  only 
a  few  noted  men  and  a  woman  or  two  were  experts. 

When  "  Potter  the  ventriloquist,"  the  predecessor 
of  the  well-remembered  Signer  Blitz,  went  round  giv- 
ing his  entertainments,  there  was  something  unex- 
plained, uncanny,  almost  awful,  and  beyond  dispute 
marvellous,  in  his  performances.  Those  watches  that 
disappeared  and  came  back  to  their  owners,  those  end- 
less supplies  of  treasures  from  empty  hats,  and  es- 
pecially those  crawling  eggs  that  travelled  all  over  the 
magician's  person,  sent  many  a  child  home  thinking 
that  Mr.  Potter  must  have  ghostly  assistants,  and 
raised  grave  doubts  in  the  minds  of  "  professors,"  that 
is  members  of  the  church,  whether  they  had  not  com- 
promised their  characters  by  being  seen  at  such  an  un- 
hallowed exhibition.  Nowadays,  a  clever  boy  who  has 
made  a  study  of  parlor  magic  can  do  many  of  those 
tricks  almost  as  well  as  the  great  sorcerer  himself. 
How  simple  it  all  seems  when  we  have  seen  the 
mechanism  of  the  deception ! 

It  is  just  so  with  writing  in  verse.  It  was  not  un- 
derstood that  everybody  can  learn  to  make  poetry^ 
just  as  they  can  learn  the  more  difficult  tricks  of  jug- 
gling. M.  Jourdain's  discovery  that  he  had  been 


78  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

speaking  and  writing  prose  all  his  life  is  nothing  to 
that  of  the  man  who  finds  out  in  middle  life,  or  even 
later,  that  he  might  have  been  writing  poetry  all  his 
days,  if  he  had  only  known  how  perfectly  easy  and 
simple  it  is.  Not  everybody,  it  is  true,  has  a  suffi- 
ciently good  ear,  a  sufficient  knowledge  of  rhymes 
and  capacity  for  handling  them,  to  be  what  is  called  a 
poet.  I  doubt  whether  more  than  nine  out  of  ten,  in 
the  average,  have  that  combination  of  gifts  required 
for  the  writing  of  readable  verse. 

This  last  expression  of  opinion  created  a  sensation 
among  The  Teacups.  They  looked  puzzled  for  a 
minute.  One  whispered  to  the  next  Teacup,  "  More 
than  nine  out  of  ten !  I  should  think  that  was  a 
pretty  liberal  allowance." 

Yes,  I  continued  ;  perhaps  ninety-nine  in  a  hundred 
would  come  nearer  to  the  mark.  I  have  sometimes 
thought  I  might  consider  it  worth  while  to  set  up  a 
school  for  instruction  in  the  art.  "  Poetry  taught  in 
twelve  lessons"  Congenital  idiocy  is  no  disqualifica- 
tion. Anybody  can  write  "  poetry."  It  is  a  most 
unenviable  distinction  to  have  published  a  thin  vol- 
ume of  verse,  which  nobody  wanted,  nobody  buys,  no- 
body reads,  nobody  cares  for  except  the  author,  who 
cries  over  its  pathos,  poor  fellow,  and  revels  in  its 
beauties,  which  he  has  all  to  himself.  Come !  who 
will  be  my  pupils  in  a  Course,  —  Poetry  taught  in 
twelve  lessons  ? 

That  made  a  laugh,  in  which  most  of  The  Teacups, 
myself  included,  joined  heartily.  Through  it  all  I 
heard  the  sweet  tones  of  Number  Five's  caressing 
voice  ;  not  because  it  was  more  penetrating  or  louder 
than  the  others,  for  it  was  low  and  soft,  but  it  was  so 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  79 

different  from  the  others,  there  was  so  much  more 
life,  —  the  life  of  sweet  womanhood,  —  dissolved 
in  it.  ^ 

(Of  course  he  will  fall  in  love  with  her.  "He? 
Who  ?  "  Why,  the  new-comer,  the  Counsellor.  Did 
I  not  see  his  eyes  turn  toward  her  as  the  silvery  notes 
rippled  from  her  throat  ?  Did  they  not  follow  her  in 
her  movements,  as  she  turned  her  head  this  or  that 
way? 

—  What  nonsense  for  me  to  be  arranging  matters 
between  two  people  strangers  to  each  other  before 
to-day !) 

"  A  fellow  writes  in  verse  when  he  has  nothing  to 
say,  and  feels  too  dull  and  silly  to  say  it  in  prose," 
said  Number  Seven. 

This  made  us  laugh  again,  good-naturedly.  I  was 
pleased  with  a  kind  of  truth  which  it  seemed  to  me  to 
wrap  up  in  its  rather  startling  affirmation.  I  gave  a 
piece  of  advice  the  other  day  which  I  said  I  thought 
deserved  a  paragraph  to  itself.  It  was  from  a  letter 
I  wrote  not  long  ago  to  an  unknown  young  corre- 
spondent, who  had  a  longing  for  seeing  himself  in 
verse,  but  was  not  hopelessly  infatuated  with  the  idea 
that  he  was  born  a  "  poet."  "  When  you  write  in 
prose,"  I  said,  "  you  say  what  you  mean.  When  you 
write  in  verse  you  say  what  you  must"  I  was  think- 
ing more  especially  of  rhymed  verse.  Rhythm  alone 
is  a  tether,  and  not  a  very  long  one.  But  rhymes  are 
iron  fetters ;  it  is  dragging  a  chain  and  ball  to  march 
under  their  incumbrance  ;  it  is  a  clog-dance  you  are 
figuring  in,  when  you  execute  your  metrical  pas  seul. 
Consider  under  what  a  disadvantage  your  thinking 
powers  are  laboring  when  you  are  handicapped  by  the 
inexorable  demands  of  our  scanty  English  rhyming 


80  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

vocabulary!  You  want  to  say  something  about  the 
heavenly  bodies,  and  you  have  a  beautiful  line  ending 
with  the  word  stars.  XVere  you  writing  in  prose, 
your  imagination,  your  fancy,  your  rhetoric,  your  mu- 
sical ear  for  the  harmonies  of  language,  would  all 
have  full  play.  But  there  is  your  rhyme  fastening 
you  by  the  leg,  and  you  must  either  reject  the  line 
which  pleases  you,  or  you  must  whip  your  hobbling 
fancy  and  all  your  limping  thoughts  into  the  traces 
which  are  hitched  to  one  of  three  or  four  or  half  a 
dozen  serviceable  words.  You  cannot  make  any  use 
of  cars,  I  will  suppose  ;  you  have  no  occasion  to  talk 
about  scars  ;  "  the  red  planet  Mars  "  has  been  used 
already ;  Dibdin  has  said  enough  about  the  gallant 
tars  ;  what  is  there  left  for  you  but  bars  ?  So  you 
give  up  your  trains  of  thought,  capitulate  to  necessity, 
and  manage  to  lug  in  some  kind  of  allusion,  in  place 
or  out  of  place,  which  will  allow  you  to  make  use  of 
bars.  Can  there  be  imagined  a  more  certain  process 
for  breaking  up  all  continuity  of  thought,  for  taking 
out  all  the  vigor,  all  the  virility,  which  belongs  to  nat- 
ural prose  as  the  vehicle  of  strong,  graceful,  sponta- 
neous thought,  than  this  miserable  subjugation  of  in- 
tellect to  the  clink  of  well  or  ill  matched  syllables  ? 
I  think  you  will  smile  if  I  tell  you  of  an  idea  I  have 
had  about  teaching  the  art  of  writing  "  poems  "  to  the 
half-witted  children  at  the  Idiot  Asylum.  The  trick 
of  rhyming  cannot  be  more  usefully  employed  than  in 
furnishing  a  pleasant  amusement  to  the  poor  feeble- 
minded children.  I  should  feel  that  I  was  well  em- 
ployed in  getting  up  a  Primer  for  the  pupils  of  the 
Asylum,  and  other  young  persons  who  are  incapable  of 
serious  thought  and  connected  expression.  I  would 
start  in  the  simplest  way  ;  thus  :  — 


OVER   THE   TEACUPS.  81 

When  darkness  veils  the  evening 

I  love  to  close  my  weary  .... 

The  ptipil  begins  by  supplying  the  missing  words, 
which  most  children  who  are  able  to  keep  out  of  fire 
and  water  can  accomplish  after  a  certain  number  of 
trials.  When  the  poet  that  is  to  be  has  got  so  as  to 
perform  this  task  easily,  a  skeleton  verse,  in  which 
two  or  three  words  of  each  line  are  omitted,  is  given 
the  child  to  fill  up.  By  and  by  the  more  difficult 
forms  of  metre  are  outlined,  until  at  length  a  feeble- 
minded child  can  make  out  a  sonnet,  completely 
equipped  with  its  four  pairs  of  rhymes  in  the  first  sec- 
tion and  its  three  pairs  in  the  second  part. 

Number  Seven  interrupted  my  discourse  somewhat 
abruptly,  as  is  his  wont ;  for  we  grant  him  a  license, 
in  virtue  of  his  eccentricity,  which  we  should  hardly 
expect  to  be  claimed  by  a  perfectly  sound.  Teacup. 

"  That 's  the  wavj  —  that 's  the  way  !  "  exclaimed 
he.  "  It 's  just  the  same  thing  as  my  plan  for  teach- 
ing drawing." 

Some  curiosity  was  shown  among  The  Teacups  to 
know  what  the  queer  creature  had  got  into  his  head, 
and  Number  Five  asked  him,  in  her  irresistible  tones, 
if  he  would  n't  oblige  us  by  telling  us  all  about  it. 

He  looked  at  her  a  moment  without  speaking.  I 
suppose  he  has  often  been  made  fun  of,  —  slighted  in 
conversation,  taken  as  a  butt  for  people  who  thought 
themselves  witty,  made  to  feel  as  we  may  suppose  a 
cracked  piece  of  china-ware  feels  when  it  is  clinked  in 
the  company  of  sound  bits  of  porcelain.  I  never  saw 
him  when  he  was  carelessly  dealt  with  in  conversation, 

—  for  it  would  sometimes  happen,  even  at  our  table, 

—  without  recalling   some   lines   of    Emerson  which 
always  struck  me  as  of  wonderful  force  and  almost 
terrible  truthfulness  :  -  - 


82  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

"  Alas  f  that  one  is  boru  in  blight, 
Victim  of  perpetual  slight : 
When  thou  lookest  in  his  face 
Thy  heart  saith,  '  Brother,  go  thy  ways  ! 
None  shall  ask  thee  what  thou  doest, 
Or  care  a  rush  for  what  thou  knowest, 
Or  listen  when  thou  repliest, 
Or  remember  where  thou  liest, 
Or  how  thy  supper  is  sodden  ; ' 
And  another  is  born 
To  make  the  sun  forgotten." 

Poor  fellow !  Number  Seven  has  to  bear  a  good  deal 
in  the  way  of  neglect  and  ridicule,  I  do  not  doubt. 
Happily,  he  is  protected  by  an  amount  of  belief  in 
himself  which  shields  him  from  many  assailants  who 
would  torture  a  more  sensitive  nature.  But  the  sweet 
voice  of  Number  Five  and  her  sincere  way  of  address- 
ing him  seemed  to  touch  his  feelings.  That  was  the 
meaning  of  his  momentary  silence,  in  which  I  saw 
that  his  eyes  glistened  and  a  faint  flush  rose  on  his 
cheeks.  In  a  moment,  however,  as  soon  as  he  was  on 
his  hobby,  he  was  all  right,  and  explained  his  new  and 
ingenious  system  as  follows :  — 

"  A  man  at  a  certain  distance  appears  as  a  dark 
spot, —  nothing  more.  Good.  Anybody,  man,  wo- 
man, or  child,  can  make  a  dot,  say  a  period,  such  as 
we  use  in  writing.  Lesson  No.  1.  Make  a  dot ;  that 
is,  draw  your  man,  a  mile  off,  if  that  is  far  enough. 
Now  make  him  come  a  little  nearer,  a  few  rods,  say. 
The  dot  is  an  oblong  figure  now.  Good.  Let  your 
scholar  draw  the  oblong  figure.  It  is  as  easy  as  it 
is  to  make  a  note  of  admiration.  Your  man  comes 
nearer,  and  now  some  hint  of  a  bulbous  enlargement 
at  one  end,  and  perhaps  of  lateral  appendages  and  a 
bifurcation,  begins  to  show  itself.  The  pupil  sets 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  83 

down  with  his  pencil  just  what  he  sees,  —  no  more. 
So  by  degrees  the  man  who  serves  as  model  approaches. 
A  brigbt  pupil  will  learn  to  get  the  outline  of  a  hu- 
man figure  in  ten  lessons,  the  model  coming  five  hun- 
dred feet  nearer  each  time.  A  dull  one  may  require 
fifty,  the  model  beginning  a  mile  off,  or  more,  and 
coming  a  hundred  feet  nearer  at  each  move." 

The  company  were  amused  by  all  this,  but  could 
not  help  seeing  that  there  was  a  certain  practical  pos- 
sibility about  the  scheme.  Our  two  Annexes,  as  we 
call  them,  appeared  to  be  interested  in  the  project,  or 
fancy,  or  whim,  or  whatever  the  older  heads  might 
consider  it.  "  I  guess  I  '11  try  it,"  said  the  American 
Annex.  "  Quite  so,"  answered  the  English  Annex. 
Why  the  first  girl  "guessed"  about  her  own  inten- 
tions it  is  hard  to  say.  What  "  Quite  so  "  referred  to 
it  would  not  be  easy  to  determine.  But  these  two 
expressions  would  decide  the  nationality  of  our  two 
young  ladies  if  we  met  them  on  the  top  of  the  great 
Pyramid. 

I  was  very  glad  that  Number  Seven  had  interrupted 
me.  In  fact,  it  is  a  good  thing  once  in  a  while  to 
break  in  upon  the  monotony  of  a  steady  talker  at  a 
dinner-table,  tea-table,  or  any  other  place  of  social 
converse.  The  best  talker  is  liable  to  become  the 
most  formidable  of  bores.  It  is  a  peculiarity  of  the 
bore  that  he  is  the  last  person  to  find  himself  out. 
Many  a  terebrant  I  have  known  who,  in  that  capacity, 
to  borrow  a  line  from  Coleridge, 

"  Was  great,  nor  knew  how  great  he  was." 
A  line,  by  the  way,  which,  as  I  have  remarked,  has  in 
it  a  germ  like  that  famous  "  He  builded  better  than 
he  knew  "  of  Emerson. 

There  was  a  slight  lull  in  the  conversation.     The 


g4  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

Mistress,  who  keeps  an  eye  on  the  course  of  things, 
and  feared  that  one  of  those  panic  silences  was  im- 
pending, in  which  everybody  wants  to  say  something 
and  does  not  know  just  what  to  say,  begged  me  to  go 
on  with  my  remarks  about  the  "  manufacture "  of 
"  poetry." 

You  use  the  right  term,  madam,  I  said.  The  man- 
ufacture of  that  article  has  become  an  extensive  and 
therefore  an  important  branch  of  industry.  One  must 
be  an  editor,  which  I  am  not,  or  a  literary  confidant 
of  a  wide  circle  of  correspondents,  which  I  am,  to 
have  any  idea  of  the  enormous  output  of  verse  which 
is  characteristic  of  our  time.  There  are  many  curious 
facts  connected  with  this  phenomenon.  Educated 
people  —  yes,  and  many  who  are  not  educated  —  have 
discovered  that  rhymes  are  not  the  private  property 
of  a  few  noted  writers  who,  having  squatted  on  that 
part  of  the  literary  domain  some  twenty  or  forty  or 
sixty  years  ago,  have,  as  it  were,  fenced  it  in  with 
their  touchy,  barbed-wire  reputations,  and  have  come 
to  regard  it  and  cause  it  to  be  regarded  as  their  pri- 
vate property.  The  discovery  having  been  made  that 
rhyme  is  not  a  paddock  for  this  or  that  race-horse,  but 
a  common,  where  every  colt,  pony,  and  donkey  can 
range  at  will,  a  vast  irruption  into  that  once-privileged 
inclosure  has  taken  place.  The  study  of  the  great 
invasion  is  interesting. 

Poetry  is  commonly  thought  to  be  the  language  of 
emotion.  On  the  contrary,  most  of  what  is  so  called 
proves  the  absence  of  all  passionate  excitement.  It  is 
a  cold-blooded,  haggard,  anxious,  worrying  hunt  after 
rhymes  which  can  be  made  serviceable,  after  images 
which  will  be  effective,  after  phrases  which  are  sono- 
rous ;  all  this  under  limitations  which  restrict  the  nat- 


OVER   THE  TEACUPS.  85 

ural  movements  of  faucy  and  imagination.  There  is 
a  secondary  excitement  in  overcoming  the  difficulties 
of  rhythm  and  rhyme,  no  doubt,  but  tb;s  is  not  the 
emotional  heat  excited  by  the  subject  of  the  "  poet's  " 
treatment.  True  poetry,  the  best  of  it,  is  but  the 
ashes  of  a  burnt-out  passion.  The  flame  was  in  the 
eye  and  in  the  cheek,  the  coals  may  be  still  burning 
in  the  heart,  but  when  we  come  to  the  words  it  leaves 
behind  it,  a  little  warmth,  a  cinder  or  two  just  glim- 
mering under  the  dead  gray  ashes,  —  that  is  all  we 
can  look  for.  When  it  comes  to  the  manufactured 
article,  one  is  surprised  to  find  how  well  the  metrical 
artisans  have  learned  to  imitate  the  real  thing.  They 
catch  all  the  phrases  of  the  true  poet.  They  imitate 
his  metrical  forms  as  a  mimic  copies  the  gait  of  the 
person  he  is  representing. 

Now  I  am  not  going  to  abuse  "  these  same  metre 
ballad-mongers,"  for  the  obvious  reason  that,  as  all 
The  Teacups  know,  I  myself  belong  to  the  fraternity. 
I  don't  think  that  this  reason  should  hinder  my  hav- 
ing my  say  about  the  ballad-mongering  business.  For 
the  last  thirty  years  I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  re- 
ceiving a  volume  of  poems  or  a  poem,  printed  or  man- 
uscript —  I  will  not  say  daily,  though  I  sometimes  re- 
ceive more  than  one  in  a  day,  but  at  very  short  inter- 
vals. I  have  been  consulted  by  hundreds  of  writers 
of  verse  as  to  the  merit  of  their  performances,  and 
have  often  advised  the  writers  to  the  best  of  my  ability. 
Of  late  I  have  found  it  impossible  to  attempt  to  read 
critically  all  the  literary  productions,  in  verse  and  in 
prose,  which  have  heaped  themselves  on  every  exposed 
surface  of  my  library,  like  snowdrifts  along  the  rail- 
road tracks,  —  blocking  my  literary  pathway,  so  that 
I  can  hardly  find  my  daily  papers. 


86  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  this  rush  into  rhyming  of 
such  a  multitude  of  people,  of  all  ages,  from  the  in- 
fant phenomenon  to  the  oldest  inhabitant  ? 

Many  of  my  young  correspondents  have  told  me  in 
so  many  words,  "  I  want  to  be  famous."  Now  it  is 
true  that  of  all  the  short  cuts  to  fame,  in  time  of  peace, 
there  is  none  shorter  than  the  road  paved  with  rhymes. 
Byron  woke  up  one  morning  and  found  himself  fa- 
mous. Still  more  notably  did  Rouget  de  1'Isle  fill  the 
air  of  France,  nay,  the  whole  atmosphere  of  freedom 
all  the  world  over,  with  his  name  wafted  on  the  wings 
of  the  Marseillaise,  the  work  of  a  single  night.  But 
if  by  fame  the  aspirant  means  having  his  name  brought 
before  and  kept  before  the  public,  there  is  a  much 
cheaper  way  of  acquiring  that  kind  of  notoriety.  Have 
your  portrait  taken  as  a  "  Wonderful  Cure  of  a  Des- 
perate Disease  given  up  by  all  the  Doctors."  You 
will  get  a  fair  likeness  of  yourself  and  a  partial  bio- 
graphical notice,  and  have  the  satisfaction,  if  not  of 
promoting  the  welfare  of  the  community,  at  least  that 
of  advancing  the  financial  interests  of  the  benefactor 
whose  enterprise  has  given  you  your  coveted  notoriety. 
If  a  man  wants  to  be  famous,  he  had  much  better  try 
the  advertising  doctor  than  the  terrible  editor,  whose 
waste-basket  is  a  maw  which  is  as  insatiable  as  the 
temporary  stomach  of  Jack  the  Giant-killer. 

"  You  must  not  talk  so,"  said  Number  Five.  "  I 
know  you  don't  mean  any  wrong  to  the  true  poets, 
but  you  might  be  thought  to  hold  them  cheap,  whereas 
you  value  the  gift  in  others,  —  in  yourself  too,  I  rather 
think.  There  are  a  great  many  women,  —  and  some 
men,  —  who  write  in  verse  from  a  natural  instinct 
which  leads  them  to  that  form  of  expression.  If  you 
couid  peep  into  the  portfolio  of  all  the  cultivated 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  87 

women  among  your  acquaintances,  you  would  be  sur- 
prised, I  believe,  to  see  how  many  of  them  trust  their 
thoughts  and  feelings  to  verse  which  they  never  think 
of  publishing,  and  much  of  which  never  meets  any 
eyes  but  their  own.  Don't  be  cruel  to  the  sensitive 
natures  who  find  a  music  in  the  harmonies  of  rhythm 
and  rhyme  which  soothes  their  own  souls,  if  it  reaches 
no  farther." 

I  was  glad  that  Number  Five  spoke  up  as  she  did. 
Her  generous  instinct  came  to  the  rescue  of  the  poor 
poets  just  at  the  right  moment.  Not  that  I  meant  to 
deal  roughly  with  them,  but  the  "  poets  "  I  have  been 
fovced  into  relation  with  have  impressed  me  with  cer- 
tain convictions  which  are  not  flattering  to  the  fra- 
ternity, and  if  my  judgments  are  not  accompanied  by 
my  own  qualifications,  distinctions,  and  exceptions, 
they  may  seem  harsh  to  many  readers. 

Let  me  draw  a  picture  which  many  a  young  man 
and  woman,  and  some  no  longer  young,  will  recognize 
as  the  story  of  their  own  experiences. 

—  He  is  sitting  alone  with  his  own  thoughts  and 
memories.  What  is  that  book  he  is  holding  ?  Some- 
thing precious,  evidently,  for  it  is  bound  in  "  tree 
calf,"  and  there  is  gilding  enough  about  it  for  a  birth- 
day present.  The  reader  seems  to  be  deeply  absorbed 
in  its  contents,  and  at  times  greatly  excited  by  what 
he  reads ;  for  his  face  is  flushed,  his  eyes  glitter,  and 
—  there  rolls  a  large  tear  down  his  cheek.  Listen  to 
him  ;  he  is  reading  aloud  in  impassioned  tones  :  — 

And  have  I  coined  my  soul  in  words  for  naught  ? 
And  must  I,  with  the  dim,  forgotten  throng 
Of  silent  ghosts  that  left  no  earthly  trace 


gg  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

To  show  they  once  had  breathed  this  vital  air, 
Die  out  of  mortal  memories  ? 

His  voice  is  choked  by  his  emotion.  "  How  is  it  pos- 
sible," he  says  to  himself,  "  that  any  one  can  read  my 
'  Gaspings  for  Immortality  *  without  being  impressed 
by  their  freshness,  their  passion,  their  beauty,  their 
originality  ?  "  Tears  come  to  his  relief  freely,  —  so 
freely  that  he  has  to  push  the  precious  volume  out  of 
the  range  of  their  blistering  shower.  Six  years  ago 
"  Gaspings  for  Immortality "  was  published,  adver- 
tised, praised  by  the  professionals  whose  business  it  is 
to  boost  their  publishers'  authors.  A  week  and  more 
it  was  seen  on  the  counters  of  the  booksellers  and  at 
the  stalls  in  the  railroad  stations.  Then  it  disap- 
peared from  public  view.  A  few  copies  still  kept 
their  place  on  the  shelves  of  friends,  —  presentation 
copies,  of  course,  as  there  is  no  evidence  that  any 
were  disposed  of  by  sale ;  and  now,  one  might  as  well 
ask  for  the  lost  books  of  Livy  as  inquire  at  a  book- 
store for  "  Gaspings  for  Immortality." 

The  authors  of  these  poems  are  all  round  us,  men 
and  women,  and  no  one  with  a  fair  amount  of  human 
sympathy  in  his  disposition  would  treat  them  other- 
wise than  tenderly.  Perhaps  they  do  not  need  tender 
treatment.  How  do  you  know  that  posterity  may  not 
resuscitate  these  seemingly  dead  poems,  and  give  their 
author  the  immortality  for  which  he  longed  and  la- 
bored ?  It  is  not  every  poet  who  is  at  once  appreci- 
ated. Some  will  tell  you  that  the  best  poets  never 
are.  Who  can  say  that  you,  dear  unappreciated 
brother  or  sister,  are  not  one  of  those  whom  it  is  left 
for  after  times  to  discover  among  the  wrecks  of  the 
past,  and  hold  up  to  the  admiration  of  the  world  ? 


OVER   THE  TEACUPS.  89 

I  have  not  thought  it  necessary  to  put  in  all  the  in- 
terpellations, as  the  French  call  them,  which  broke 
the  course  of  this  somewhat  extended  series  of  re- 
marks ;  but  the  comments  of  some  of  The  Teacups 
helped  me  to  shape  certain  additional  observations, 
and  may  seem  to  the  reader  as  of  more  significance 
than  what  I  had  been  saying. 

Number  Seven  saw  nothing  but  the  folly  and  weak- 
ness of  the  "rhyming  cranks,"  as  he  called  them. 
He  thought  the  fellow  that  I  had  described  as  blub- 
bering over  his  still-born  poems  would  have  been  bet- 
ter occupied  in  earning  his  living  in  some  honest  way 
or  other.  He  knew  one  chap  that  published  a  volume 
of  verses,  and  let  his  wife  bring  up  the  wood  for  the 
fire  by  which  he  was  writing.  A  fellow  says,  "  I  am 
a  poet !  "  and  he  thinks  himself  different  from  com- 
mon folks.  He  ought  to  be  excused  from  military 
service.  He  might  be  killed,  and  the  world  would 
lose  the  inestimable  products  of  his  genius.  "  I  be- 
lieve some  of  'em  think,"  said  Number  Seven,  "  that 
they  ought  not  to  be  called  upon  to  pay  their  taxes 
and  their  bills  for  household  expenses,  like  the  rest 
of  us." 

"  If  they  would  only  study  and  take  to  heart  Hor- 
ace's '  Ars  Poetica,'  "  said  the  Professor,  "  it  would  be 
a  great  benefit  to  them  and  to  the  world  at  large.  I 
would  not  advise  you  to  follow  him  too  literally,  of 
course,  for,  as  you  will  see,  the  changes  that  have 
taken  place  since  his  time  would  make  some  of  his 
precepts  useless  and  some  dangerous,  but  the  spirit  of 
them  is  always  instructive.  This  is  the  way,  some- 
what modernized  and  accompanied  by  my  running 
commentary,  in  which  he  counsels  a  young  poet :  — 

"  '  Don't  try  to  write  poetry,  my  boy,  when  you  are 


90  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

not  in  the  mood  for  doing  it,  —  when  it  goes  against 
the  grain.  You  are  a  fellow  of  sense,  —  you  under- 
stand all  that. 

" '  If  you  have  written  anything  which  you  think 

well  of,  show  it  to  Mr. ,  the  well-known  critic ; 

to  "  the  governor,"  as  you  call  him,  —  your  honored 
father  ;  and  to  me,  your  friend.' 

"  To  the  critic  is  well  enough,  if  you  like  to  be  over- 
hauled and  put  out  of  conceit  with  yourself,  —  it  may 
do  you  good ;  but  I  would  n't  go  to  '  the  governor ' 
'  with  my  verses,  if  I  were  you.  For  either  he  will 
think  what  you  have  written  is  something  wonderful, 
almost  as  good  as  he  could  have  written  himself,  —  in 
fact,  he  always  did  believe  in  hereditary  genius,  —  or 
he  will  pooh-pooh  the  whole  rhyming  nonsense,  and 
tell  you  that  you  had  a  great  deal  better  stick  to  your 
business,  and  leave  all  the  word-jingling  to  Mother 
Goose  and  her  followers. 

"  '  Show  me  your  verses,'  says  Horace.  Very  good 
it  was  in  him,  and  mighty  encouraging  the  first  counsel 
he  gives !  '  Keep  your  poem  to  yourself  for  some 
eight  or  ten  years ;  you  will  have  time  to  look  it  over, 
to  correct  it  and  make  it  fit  to  present  to  the  public.' 

" '  Much  obliged  for  your  advice,'  says  the  poor 
poet,  thirsting  for  a  draught  of  fame,  and  offered  a 
handful  of  dust.  And  off  he  hurries  to  the  printer, 
to  be  sure  that  his  poem  comes  out  in  the  next  num- 
ber of  the  magazine  he  writes  for." 

"  Is  not  poetry  the  natural  language  of  lovers  ?  " 

It  was  the  Tutor  who  asked  this  question,  and  I 

thought  he  looked  in  the  direction  of  Number  Five,  as 

if  she  might  answer  his  question.     But  Number  Five 

stirred  her  tea  devotedly ;  there  was  a  lump  of  sugar, 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  91 

I  suppose,  that  acted  like  a  piece  of  marble.  So  there 
was  a  silence  while  the  lump  was  slowly  dissolving, 
and  it.  was  anybody's  chance  who  saw  fit  to  take  up 
the  conversation. 

The  voice  that  broke  the  silence  was  not  the  sweet, 
winsome  one  we  were  listening  for,  but  it  instantly 
arrested  the  attention  of  the  company.  It  was  the 
grave,  manly  voice  of  one  used  to  speaking,  and  ac- 
customed to  be  listened  to  with  deference.  This  was 
the  first  time  that  the  company  as  a  whole  had  heard 
it,  for  the  speaker  was  the  new-comer  who  has  been 
repeatedly  alluded  to,  —  the  one  of  whom  I  spoke  as 
"  the  Counsellor." 

"  I  think  I  can  tell  you  something  about  that, "  said 
the  Counsellor.  "  I  suppose  you  will  wonder  how  a 
man  of  my  profession  can  know  or  interest  himself 
about  a  question  so  remote  from  his  arid  pursuits. 
And  yet  there  is  hardly  one  man  in  a  thousand  who 
knows  from  actual  experience  a  fraction  of  what  I 
have  learned  of  the  lovers'  vocabulary  in  my  profes- 
sional experience.  I  have,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  had  to 
take  an  important  part  in  a  great  number  of  divorce 
cases.  These  have  brought  before  me  scores  and  hun- 
dreds of  letters,  in  which  every  shade  of  the  great 
passion  has  been  represented.  What  has  most  struck 
me  in  these  amatory  correspondences  has  been  their 
remarkable  sameness.  It  seems  as  if  writing  love 
letters  reduced  all  sorts  of  people  to  the  same  level. 
I  don't  remember  whether  Lord  Bacon  has  left  us 
anything  in  that  line,  —  unless,  indeed,  he  wrote 
'  Romeo  and  Juliet '  and  the  '  Sonnets ; '  but  if  he  has, 
I  don't  believe  they  diifer  so  very  much  from  those  of 
his  valet  or  his  groom  to  their  respective  lady-loves.  It 
is  always,  My  darling !  my  darling !  The  words  of 


92  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

endearment  are  the  only  ones  the  lover  wants  to  em- 
ploy,  and  he  finds  the  vocabulary  too  limited  for  his 
vast  desires.  So  his  letters  are  apt  to  be  rather 
tedious  except  to  the  personage  to  whom  they  are  ad- 
dressed. As  to  poetiy,  it  is  very  common  to  find  it 
in  love-letters,  especially  in  those  that  have  no  love  in 
them.  The  letters  of  bigamists  and  polygamists  are 
rich  in  poetical  extracts.  Occasionally,  an  original 
spurt  in  rhyme  adds  variety  to  an  otherwise  monoto- 
nous performance.  I  don't  think  there  is  much  pas- 
sion in  men's  poetry  addressed  to  women.  I  agree 
with  The  Dictator  that  poetry  is  little  more  than  the 
ashes  of  passion  ;  still  it  may  show  that  the  flame  has 
had  its  sweep  where  you  find  it,  unless,  indeed,  it  is 
shoveled  in  from  another  man's  fireplace." 

"  What  do  you  say  to  the  love  poetry  of  women  ?  " 
asked  the  Professor.  "  Did  ever  passion  heat  words 
to  incandescence  as  it  did  those  of  Sappho  ?  " 

The  Counsellor  turned,  —  not  to  Number  Five,  as 
he  ought  to  have  done,  according  to  my  programme, 
but  to  the  Mistress. 

"  Madam,  "  he  said,  "  your  sex  is  adorable  in  many 
ways,  but  in  the  abandon  of  a  genuine  love-letter  it  is 
incomparable.  I  have  seen  a  string  of  women's  love- 
letters,  in  which  the  creature  enlaced  herself  about 
the  object  of  her  worship  as  that  South  American  par- 
asite which  clasps  the  tree  to  which  it  has  attached 
itself,  begins  with  a  slender  succulent  network,  feeds 
on  the  trunk,  spreads  its  fingers  out  to  hold  firmly  to 
one  branch  after  another,  thickens,  hardens,  stretches 
in  every  direction,  following  the  boughs,  and  at  length 
gets  strong  enough  to  hold  in  its  murderous  arms, 
high  up  in  air,  the  stump  and  shaft  of  the  once  sturdy 
growth  that  was  its  support  and  subsistence." 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  93 

The  Counsellor  did  not  say  all  this  quite  so  formally 
as  I  have  set  it  down  here,  but  in  a  much  easier  way. 
In  fact;  it  is  impossible  to  smooth  out  a  conversation 
from  memory  without  stiffening  it ;  you  can't  have 
a  dress  shirt  look  quite  right  without  starching  the 
bosom. 

Some  of  us  would  have  liked  to  hear  more  about 
those  letters  in  the  divorce  cases,  but  the  Counsellor 
had  to  leave  the  table.  He  promised  to  show  us  some 
pictures  he  has  of  the  South  American  parasite.  I 
have  seen  them,  and  I  can  assure  you  they  are  very 
curious. 

The  following  verses  were  found  in  the  urn,  or 
sugar-bowl. 

CACOETHES  SCRIBENDL 

If  all  the  trees  in  all  the  woods  were  men, 

And  each  and  every  blade  of  grass  a  pen  j 

If  every  leaf  on  every  shrub  and  tree 

Turned  to  a  sheet  of  foolscap  ;  every  sea 

Were  changed  to  ink,  and  all  earth's  living  tribes 

Had  nothing  else  to  do  but  act  as  scribes, 

And  for  ten  thousand  ages,  day  and  night, 

The  human  race  should  write,  and  write,  and  write, 

Till  all  the  pens  and  paper  were  used  up, 

And  the  huge  inkstand  was  an  empty  cup, 

Still  would  the  scribblers  clustered  round  its  brink 

Call  for  more  pens,  more  paper,  and  more  ink. 


V. 


"  Dolce,  ma  non  troppo  dolce"  said  the  Professor 
to  the  Mistress,  who  was  sweetening  his  tea.  She 
always  sweetens  his  and  mine  for  us.  He  has  been 
attending  a  series  of  concerts,  and  borrowed  the  form 
of  the  directions  to  the  orchestra.  "  Sweet,  but  not 
too  sweet,"  he  said,  translating  the  Italian  for  the 
benefit  of  any  of  the  company  who  might  not  be  lin- 
guists or  musical  experts. 

"  Do  you  go  to  those  musical  hullabaloos  ?  "  called 
out  Number  Seven.  There  was  something  very  much 
like  rudeness  in  this  question  and  the  tone  in  which  it 
was  asked.  But  we  are  used  to  the  outbursts,  and  ex- 
travagances, and  oddities  of  Number  Seven,  and  do 
not  take  offence  at  his  rough  speeches  as  we  should  if 
any  other  of  the  company  uttered  them. 

"  If  you  mean  the  concerts  that  have  been  going  on 
this  season,  yes,  I  do,"  said  the  Professor,  in  a  bland, 
good-humored  way. 

"  And  do  you  take  real  pleasure  in  the  din  of  all 
those  screeching  and  banging  and  growling  instru- 
ments ?  " 

"  Yes,"  he  answered,  modestly,  "  I  enjoy  ;he  brou- 
haha, if  you  choose  to  consider  it  such,  of  all  this 
quarrelsome  menagerie  of  noise-making  machines, 
brought  into  order  and  harmony  by  the  presiding 
genius,  the  leader,  who  has  made  a  happy  family  of 
these  snarling  stringed  instruments  and  whining  wind 
instruments,  so  that  although 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  95 

Linguce  centum  sun?,  oraque  centum, 

notwithstanding  there  are  a  hundred  vibrating  tongues 
and  a  hundred  bellowing  mouths,  their  one  grand 
blended  and  harmonized  uproar  sets  all  my  fibres 
tingling  with  a  not  uupleasing  tremor." 

"  Do  you  understand  it  ?  Do  you  take  any  idea 
from  it  ?  Do  you  know  what  it  all  means  ?  "  said 
Number  Seven. 

The  Professor  was  long-suffering  under  this  series 
of  somewhat  peremptory  questions.  He  replied  very 
placidly,  "  I  am  afraid  I  have  but  a  superficial  out- 
side acquaintance  with  the  secrets,  the  unfathomable 
mysteries,  of  music.  I  can  no  more  conceive  of  the 
working  conditions  of  the  great  composer, 

'  Untwisting  all  the  chains  that  tie 
The  hidden  soul  of  harmony,' 

than  a  child  of  three  years  can  follow  the  reasonings 
of  Newton's  '  Principia.'  I  do  not  even  pretend  that 
I  can  appreciate  the  work  of  a  great  master  as  a  born 
and  trained  musician  does.  Still,  I  do  love  a  great 
crash  of  harmonies,  and  the  oftener  I  listen  to  these 
musical  tempests  the  higher  my  soul  seems  to  ride 
upon  them,  as  the  wild  fowl  I  see  through  my  window 
soar  more  freely  and  fearlessly  the  fiercer  the  storm 
with  which  they  battle." 

"  That 's  all  very  well,"  said  Number  Seven,  "  but  I 
wish  we  could  get  the  old-time  music  back  again. 
You  ought  to  have  heard,  —  no,  I  won't  mention  her, 
—  dead,  poor  girl,  —  dead  and  singing  with  the  saints 

in  heaven,  —  but  the  S girls.     If  you  could  have 

heard  them  as  I  did  when  I  was  a  boy,  you  would 
have  cried,  as  we  all  used  to.  Do  you  cry  at  those 
great  musical  smashes  ?  How  can  you  cry  when  you 
don't  know  what  it  is  all  about?  We  used  to  think 


96  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

the  words  meant  something,  —  we  fancied  that  Burns 
and  Moore  said  some  things  very  prettily.  I  suppose 
you  've  outgrown  all  that." 

No  one  can  handle  Number  Seven  in  one  of  his 
tantrums  half  so  well  as  Number  Five  can  do  it.  She 
can  pick  out  what  threads  of  sense  may  be  wound  off 
from  the  tangle  of  his  ideas  when  they  are  crowded 
and  confused,  as  they  are  apt  to  be  at  times.  She 
can  soften  the  occasional  expression  of  half-concealed 
ridicule  with  which  the  poor  old  fellow's  sallies  are 
liable  to  be  welcomed  —  or  un welcomed.  She  knows 
that  the  edge  of  a  broken  teacup  may  be  sharper, 
very  possibly,  than  that  of  a  philosopher's  jackknife. 
A  mind  a  little  off  its  balance,  one  which  has  a  slightly 
squinting  brain  as  its  organ,  will  often  prove  fertile 
in  suggestions.  Vulgar,  cynical,  contemptuous  listen- 
ers fly  at  all  its  weaknesses,  and  please  themselves 
with  making  light  of  its  often  futile  ingenuities,  when 
a  wiser  audience  would  gladly  accept  a  hint  which 
perhaps  could  be  developed  in  some  profitable  direc- 
tion, or  so  interpret  an  erratic  thought  that  it  should 
prove  good  sense  in  disguise.  That  is  the  way  Num- 
ber Five  was  in  the  habit  of  dealing  with  the  ex- 
plosions of  Number  Seven.  Do  you  think  she  did  not 
see  the  ridiculous  element  in  a  silly  speech,  or  the 
absurdity  of  an  outrageously  extravagant  assertion? 
Then  you  never  heard  her  laugh  when  she  could  give 
way  to  her  sense  of  the  ludicrous  without  wounding 
the  feelings  of  any  other  person.  But  her  kind  heart 
never  would  forget  itself,  and  so  Number  Seven  had  a 
champion  who  was  always  ready  to  see  that  his  flashes 
of  intelligence,  fitful  as  they  were,  and  liable  to  be 
streaked  with  half-crazy  fancies,  always  found  one 
willing  recipient  of  what  light  there  was  in  them. 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  97 

Number  Five,  I  have  found,  is  a  true  lover  of  music, 
and  has  a  right  to  claim  a  real  knowledge  of  its  higher 
and  deeper  mysteries.  But  she  accepted  very  cordially 
what  our  light-headed  companion  said  about  the  songs 
he  used  to  listen  to. 

"  There  is  no  doubt,"  she  remarked,  "  that  the  tears 
which  used  to  be  shed  over  '  Oft  in  the  stilly  night,'  or 
'  Auld  Robin  Gray,'  or  '  A  place  in  thy  memory,  dear- 
est,' were  honest  tears,  coming  from  the  true  sources 
of  emotion.  There  was  no  affectation  about  them  ; 
those  songs  came  home  to  the  sensibilities  of  young 
people,  —  of  all  who  had  any  sensibilities  to  be  acted 
upon.  And  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  great  amount 
of  affectation  in  the  apparent  enthusiasm  of  many  per- 
sons in  admiring  and  applauding  music  of  which  they 
have  not  the  least  real  appreciation.  They  do  not 
know  whether  it  is  good  or  bad,  the  work  of  a  first-rate 
or  a  fifth-rate  composer ;  whether  there  are  coherent 
elements  in  it,  or  whether  it  is  nothing  more  than  *  a 
concourse  of  sweet  sounds '  with  no  organic  connec- 
tions. One  must  be  educated,  no  doubt,  to  understand 
the  more  complex  and  difficult  kinds  of  musical  com- 
position. Go  to  the  great  concerts  where  you  know 
that  the  music  is  good,  and  that  you  ought  to  like  it 
whether  you  do  or  not.  Take  a  music-bath  once  or 
twice  a  week  for  a  few  seasons,  and  you  will  find  that 
it  is  to  the  soul  what  the  water-bath  is  to  the  body. 
I  wouldn't  trouble  myself  about  the  affectations  of 
people  who  go  to  this  or  that  series  of  concerts  chiefly 
because  it  is  fashionable.  Some  of  these  people  whom 
we  think  so  silly  and  hold  so  cheap  will  perhaps  find, 
sooner  or  later,  that  they  have  a  dormant  faculty  which 
is  at  last  waking  up,  and  that  they  who  came  because 
others  came,  and  began  by  staring  at  the  audience, 


98  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

are  listening  with  a  newly  found  delight.  Every  one 
of  us  has  a  harp  under  bodice  or  waistcoat,  and  if  it 
can  only  once  get  properly  strung  and  tuned  it  will 
respond  to  all  outside  harmonies." 

The  Professor  has  some  ideas  about  music,  which  I 
believe  he  has  given  to  the  world  in  one  form  or  an- 
other ;  but  the  world  is  growing  old  and  forgetful,  and 
needs  to  be  reminded  now  and  then  of  what  one  has 
formerly  told  it. 

"  I  have  had  glimpses,"  the  Professor  said,  "  of  the 
conditions  into  which  music  is  capable  of  bringing  a 
sensitive  nature.  Glimpses,  I  say,  because  I  cannot 
pretend  that  I  am  capable  of  sounding  all  the  depths 
or  reaching  all  the  heights  to  which  music  may  trans- 
port our  mortal  consciousness.  Let  me  remind  you 
of  a  curious  fact  with  reference  to  the  seat  of  the  mu- 
sical sense.  Far  down  below  the  great  masses  of 
thinking  marrow  and  its  secondary  agents,  just  as  the 
brain  is  about  to  merge  in  the  spinal  cord,  the  roots 
of  the  nerve  of  hearing  spread  their  white  filaments 
out  into  the  sentient  matter,  where  they  report  what 
the  external  organs  of  hearing  tell  them.  This  sen- 
tient matter  is  in  remote  connection  only  with  the 
mental  organs,  far  more  remote  than  the  centres  of 
the  sense  of  vision  and  that  of  smell.  In  a  word,  the 
musical  faculty  might  be  said  to  have  a  little  brain  of 
its  own.  It  has  a  special  world  and  a  private  language 
all  to  itself.  How  can  one  explain  its  significance  to 
those  whose  musical  faculties  are  in  a  rudimentary 
state  of  development,  or  who  have  never  had  them 
trained?  Can  you  describe  in  intelligible  language 
the  smell  of  a  rose  as  compared  with  that  of  a  violet  ? 
No,  —  music  can  be  translated  only  by  music.  Just 
so  far  as  it  suggests  worded  thought,  it  falls  short  of 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  99 

its  highest  office.  Pure  emotional  movements  of  the 
spiritual  nature,  —  that  is  what  I  ask  of  music.  Music 
will  be  the  universal  language,  —  the  Volapuk  of 
spiritual  being." 

"  Angels  sit  down  with  their  harps  and  play  at  each 
other,  I  suppose,"  said  Number  Seven.  "  Must  have 
an  atmosphere  up  there  if  they  have  harps,  or  they 
would  n't  get  any  music.  Wonder  if  angels  breathe 
like  mortals  ?  If  they  do,  they  must  have  lungs  and 
air  passages,  of  course.  Think  of  an  angel  with  the 
influenza,  and  nothing  but  a  cloud  for  a  handker- 
chief!" 

—  This  is  a  good  instance  of  the  way  in  which 
Number  Seven's  squinting  brain  works.  You  will 
now  and  then  meet  just  such  brains  in  heads  you  know 
very  well.  Their  owners  .are  much  given  to  asking 
unanswerable  questions.  A  physicist  may  settle  it  for 
us  whether  there  is  an  atmosphere  about  a  planet  or 
not,  but  it  takes  a  brain  with  an  extra  fissure  in  it  to 
ask  these  unexpected  questions,  —  questions  which  the 
natural  philosopher  cannot  answer,  and  which  the 
theologian  never  thinks  of  asking. 

The  company  at  our  table  do  not  keep  always  in  the 
same  places.  The  first  thing  I  noticed,  the  other  even- 
ing, was  that  the  Tutor  was  sitting  between  the  two 
Annexes,  and  the  Counsellor  was  next  to  Number 
Five.  Something  ought  to  come  of  this  arrangement. 
One  of  those  two  young  ladies  must  certainly  captivate 
and  perhaps  capture  the  Tutor.  They  are  just  the 
age  to  be  falling  in  love  and  to  be  fallen  in  love  with,, 
The  Tutor  is  good  looking,  intellectual,  suspected  of 
writing  poetry,  but  a  little  shy,  it  appears  to  me.  I 
am  glad  to  see  him  between  the  two  girls.  If  there 


100  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

were  only  one,  she  might  be  shy  too,  and  then  there 
would  be  less  chance  for  a  romance  such  as  I  am  on 
the  lookout  for ;  but  these  young  persons  lend  courage 
to  each  other,  and  between  them,  if  he  does  not  wake 
up  like  Cymon  at  the  sight  of  Iphigenia,  I  shall  be 
disappointed.  As  for  the  Counsellor  and  Number 
Five,  they  will  soon  find  each  other  out.  Yes,  it  is  all 
pretty  clear  in  my  mind,  —  except  that  there  is  always 
an  »  in  a  problem  where  sentiments  are  involved.  No, 
not  so  clear  about  the  Tutor.  Predestined,  I  venture 
my  guess,  to  one  or  the  other,  but  to  which  ?  I  will 
suspend  my  opinion  for  the  present. 
*  I  have  found  out  that  the  Counsellor  is  a  childless 
widower.  I  am  told  that  the  Tutor  is  unmarried,  and 
so  far  as  known  not  engaged.  There  is  no  use  in 
denying  it,  —  a  company  without  the  possibility  of  a 
love-match  between  two  of  its  circle  is  like  a  cham- 
pagne bottle  with  the  cork  out  for  some  hours  as  com- 
pared to  one  with  its  pop  yet  in  reserve.  However,  if 
there  should  be  any  love-making,  it  need  not  break  up 
our  conversations.  Most  of  it  will  be  carried  on  away 
from  our  tea-table. 

Some  of  us  have  been  attending  certain  lectures  on 
Egypt  and  its  antiquities.  I  have  never  been  on  the 
Nile.  If  in  any  future  state  there  shall  be  vacations 
in  which  we  may  have  liberty  to  revisit  our  old  home, 
equipped  with  a  complete  brand-new  set  of  mortal 
senses  as  our  travelling  outfit,  I  think  one  of  the  first 
places  I  should  go  to,  after  my  birthplace,  the  old  gam- 
brel-roofed  house,  —  the  place  where  it  stood,  rather, 
—  would  be  that  mighty,  awe-inspiring  river.  I  do 
not  suppose  we  shall  ever  know  half  of  what  we  owe 
to  the  wise  and  wonderful  people  who  confront  us  with 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  101 

the  overpowering  monuments  of  a  past  which  flows 
out  of  the  unfathomable  darkness  as  the  great  river 
streams  from  sources  even  as  yet  but  imperfectly  ex- 
plored. 

I  have  thought  a  good  deal  about  Egypt,  lately,  with 
reference  to  our  historical  monuments.  Hew  did  the 
great  unknown  masters  who  fixed  the  two  leading 
forms  of  their  monumental  records  arrive  at  those 
admirable  and  eternal  types,  the  pyramid  and  the  obe- 
lisk ?  How  did  they  get  their  model  of  the  pyramid  ? 

Here  is  an  hour-glass,  not  inappropriately  filled 
with  sand  from  the  great  Egyptian  desert.  I  turn  it, 
and  watch  the  sand  as  it  accumulates  in  the  lower  half 
of  the  glass.  How  symmetrically,  how  beautifully, 
how  inevitably,  the  little  particles  pile  up  the  cone, 
which  is  ever  building  and  unbuilding  itself,  always 
aiming  at  the  stability  which  is  found  only  at  a  certain 
fixed  angle !  The  Egyptian  children  playing  in  the 
sand  must  have  noticed  this  as  they  let  the  grains  fall 
from  their  hands,  and  the  sloping  sides  of  the  minia- 
ture pyramid  must  have  been  among  the  familiar 
sights  to  the  little  boys  and  girls  for  whom  the  sand 
furnished  their  earliest  playthings.  Nature  taught 
her  children  through  the  working  of  the  laws  of  grav- 
itation how  to  build  so  that  her  forces  should  act  in 
harmony  with  art,  to  preserve  the  integrity  of  a  struc- 
ture meant  to  reach  a  far-off  posterity.  The  pyramid 
is  only  the  cone  in  which  Nature  arranges  her  heaped 
and  sliding  fragments ;  the  cone  with  flattened  sur- 
faces,  as  it  is  prefigured  in  certain  well-known  crystal- 
line forms.  The  obelisk  is  from  another  of  Nature' & 
patterns  ;  it  is  only  a  gigantic  acicular  crystal. 

The  Egyptians  knew  what  a  monument  should  be, 
simple,  noble,  durable.  It  seems  to  me  that  we 


102  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

Americans  might  take  a  lesson  from  those  early  archi- 
tects. Our  cemeteries  are  crowded  with  monuments 
which  are  very  far  from  simple,  anything  but  noble, 
and  stand  a  small  chance  of  being  permanent.  The 
pyramid  is  rarely  seen,  perhaps  because  it  takes  up  so 
much  room,  and  when  built  on  a  small  scale  seems 
insignificant  as  we  think  of  it,  dwarfed  by  the  vast 
structures  of  antiquity.  The  obelisk  is  very  common , 
and  when  in  just  proportions  and  of  respectable  di- 
mensions is  unobjectionable. 

But  the  gigantic  obelisks  like  that  on  Bunker  Hill, 
and  especially  the  Washington  monument  at  the  na- 
tional capital,  are  open  to  critical  animadversion.  Let 
us  contrast  the  last  mentioned  of  these  great  piles 
with  the  obelisk  as  the  Egyptian  conceived  and  exe- 
cuted it.  The  new  Pharaoh  ordered  a  memorial  of 
some  important  personage  o^  event.  In  the  first 
place,  a  mighty  stone  was  dislodged  from  its  connec- 
tions, and  lifted,  unbroken,  from  the  quarry.  This 
was  a  feat  from  which  our  modern  stone-workers 
shrink  dismayed.  The  Egyptians  appear  to  have 
handled  these  huge  monoliths  as  our  artisans  handle 
hearthstones  and  doorsteps,  for  the  land  actually  bris- 
tled with  such  giant  columns.  They  were  shaped  and 
finished  as  nicely  as  if  they  were  breastpins  for  the 
Titans  to  wear,  and  on  their  polished  surfaces  were 
engraved  in  imperishable  characters  the  records  they 
were  erected  to  preserve. 

Europe  and  America  borrow  these  noble  produc- 
tions of  African  art  and  power,  and  find  them  hard 
enough  to  handle  after  they  have  succeeded  in  trans- 
porting them  to  Rome,  or  London,  or  New  York. 
Their  simplicity,  grandeur,  imperishability,  speaking 
symbolism,  shame  all  the  pretentious  and  fragile 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  103 

works  of  human  art  around  them.  The  obelisk  has 
no  joints  for  the  destructive  agencies  of  nature  to 
attack ;  the  pyramid  has  no  masses  hanging  in  unsta- 
ble equilibrium,  and  threatening  to  fall  by  their  own 
weight  in  the  course  of  a  thousand  or  two  years. 

America  says  the  Father  of  his  Country  must  have 
a  monument  worthy  of  his  exalted  place  in  history. 
What  shall  it  be  ?  A  temple  such  as  Athens  might 
have  been  proud  to  rear  upon  her  Acropolis?  An 
obelisk  such  as  Thebes  might  have  pointed  out  with 
pride  to  the  strangers  who  found  admission  through 
her  hundred  gates  ?  After  long  meditation  and  the 
rejection  of  the  hybrid  monstrosities  with  which  the 
nation  was  menaced,  an  obelisk  is  at  last  decided 
upon.  How  can  it  be  made  grand  and  dignified 
enough  to  be  equal  to  the  office  assigned  it?  We 
dare  not  attempt  to  carve  a  single  stone  from  the  liv- 
ing rock,  —  all  our  modern  appliances  fail  to  make 
the  task  as  easy  to  us  as  it  seems  to  have  been  to  the 
early  Egyptians.  No  artistic  skill  is  required  in  giv- 
ing a  four-square  tapering  figure  to  a  stone  column. 
If  we  cannot  shape  a  solid  obelisk  of  the  proper  di- 
mensions, we  can  build  one  of  separate  blocks.  How 
can  we  give  it  the  distinction  we  demand  for  it  ?  The 
nation  which  can  brag  that  it  has  "  the  biggest  show 
on  earth  "  cannot  boast  a  great  deal  in  the  way  of 
architecture,  but  it  can  do  one  thing,  —  it  can  build 
an  obelisk  that  shall  be  taller  than  any  structure  now 
standing  which  the  hand  of  man  has  raised.  Build 
an  obelisk  !  How  different  the  idea  of  such  a  struc- 
ture from  that  of  the  unbroken,  un jointed  prismatic 
shaft,  one  perfect  whole,  as  complete  in  itself,  as  fitly 
shaped  and  consolidated  to  defy  the  elements,  as  the 
towering  palm  or  the  tapering  pine !  Well,  we  had 


104  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

the  satisfaction  for  a  time  of  claiming  the  tallest 
structure  in  the  world ;  and  now  that  the  new  Tower 
of  Babel  which  has  sprung  up  in  Paris  has  killed  that 
pretention,  I  think  we  shall  feel  and  speak  more 
modestly  about  our  stone  hyperbole,  our  materializa- 
tion of  the  American  love  of  the  superlative.  We 
have  the  higher  civilization  among  us,  and  we  must  try 
to  keep  down  the  forthputting  instincts  of  the  lower. 
We  do  not  want  to  see  our  national  monument  pla- 
carded as  "  the  greatest  show  on  earth,"  —  perhaps  it 
is  well  that  it  is  taken  down  from  that  bad  eminence. 

I  do  not  think  that  this  speech  of  mine  was  very  well 
received.  It  appeared  to  jar  somewhat  on  the  nerves 
of  the  American  Annex.  There  was  a  smile  on  the  lips 
of  the  other  Annex,  —  the  English  girl,  —  which  she 
tried  to  keep  quiet,  but  it  was  too  plain  that  she  en- 
joyed my  diatribe. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  I  and  the  other  Tea- 
cups, in  common  with  the  rest  of  our  fellow-citizens, 
have  had  our  sensibilities  greatly  worked  upon,  our 
patriotism  chilled,  our  local  pride  outraged,  by  the 
monstrosities  which  have  been  allowed  to  deform  our 
Jbeautiful  public  grounds.  We  have  to  be  very  care- 
ful in  conducting  a  visitor,  say  from  his  marble-fronted 
hotel  to  the  City  Hall.  —  Keep  pretty  straight  along 
after  entering  the  Garden,  —  you  will  not  care  to  in- 
spect the  little  figure  of  the  military  gentleman  to  your 
right.  —  Yes,  the  Cochituate  water  is  drinkable,  but  I 
think  I  would  not  turn  aside  to  visit  that  small  fabric 
which  makes  believe  it  is  a  temple,  and  is  a  weak-eyed 
fountain  feebly  weeping  over  its  own  insignificance. 
About  that  other  stone  misfortune,  cruelly  reminding 
us  of  the  "  Boston  Massacre,"  we  will  not  discourse  : 
it  is  not  imposing,  and  is  rarely  spoken  of. 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  105 

What  a  mortification  to  the  inhabitants  of  a  city 
with  some  hereditary  and  contemporary  claims  to  cul- 
tivation ;  which  has  noble  edifices,  grand  libraries, 
educational  institutions  of  the  highest  grade,  an  art- 
gallery  filled  with  the  finest  models  and  rich  in  paint- 
ings and  statuary,  —  a  stately  city  that  stretches 
both  arms  across  the  Charles  to  clasp  the  hands  of 
Harvard,  her  twin-sister,  each  lending  lustre  to  the 
other  like  double  stars,  —  what  a  pity  that  she  should 
be  so  disfigured  by  crude  attempts  to  adorn  her  and 
commemorate  her  past  that  her  most  loving  children 
blush  for  her  artificial  deformities  amidst  the  wealth 
of  her  natural  beauties  !  One  hardly  knows  which  to 
groan  over  most  sadly,  —  the  tearing  down  of  old 
monuments,  the  shelling  of  the  Parthenon,  the  over- 
throw of  the  pillared  temples  of  Rome,  and  in  a  hum- 
bler way  the  destruction  of  the  old  Hancock  house,  or 
the  erection  of  monuments  which  are  to  be  a  perpetual 
eyesore  to  ourselves  and  our  descendants. 

We  got  talking  on  the  subject  of  realism,  of  which 
so  much  has  been  said  of  late. 

It  seems  to  me,  I  said,  that  the  great  additions  which 
have  been  made  by  realism  to  the  territory  of  litera- 
ture consist  largely  in  swampy,  malarious,  ill-smelling 
patches  of  soil  which  had  previously  been  left  to  rep- 
tiles and  vermin.  It  is  perfectly  easy  to  be  original 
by  violating  the  laws  of  decency  and  the  canons  of 
good  taste.  The  general  consent  of  civilized  people 
was  supposed  to  have  banished  certain  subjects  from 
the  conversation  of  well-bred  people  and  the  pages  of 
respectable  literature.  There  is  no  subject,  or  hardly 
any,  which  may  not  be  treated  of  at  the  proper  time, 
in  the  proper  place,  by  the  fitting  person,  for  the  right 


106  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

kind  of  listener  or  reader.  But  when  the  poet  or  the 
story-teller  invades  the  province  of  the  man  of  science, 
he  is  on  dangerous  ground.  I  need  say  nothing  of  the 
blunders  he  is  pretty  sure  to  make.  The  imaginative 
writer  is  after  effects.  The  scientific  man  is  after 
truth.  Science  is  decent,  modest;  does  not  try  to 
startle,  but  to  instruct.  The  same  scenes  and  objects 
which  outrage  every  sense  of  delicacy  in  the  story- 
teller's highly  colored  paragraphs  can  be  read  without 
giving  offence  in  the  chaste  language  of  the  physiolo- 
gist or  the  physician. 

There  is  a  very  celebrated  novel, "  Madame  Bovary," 
the  work  of  M.  Flaubert,  which  is  noted  for  having 
been  the  subject  of  prosecution  as  an  immoral  work. 
That  it  has  a  serious  lesson  there  is  no  doubt,  if  one 
will  drink  down  to  the  bottom  of  the  cup.  But  the 
honey  of  sensuous  description  is  spread  so  deeply  over 
the  surface  of  the  goblet  that  a  large  proportion  of  its 
readers  never  think  of  its  holding  anything  else.  All 
the  phases  of  unhallowed  passion  are  described  in  full 
detail.  That  is  what  the  book  is  bought  and  read  for, 
by  the  great  majority  of  its  purchasers,  as  all  but  sim- 
pletons very  well  know.  That  is  what  makes  it  sell 
and  brought  it  into  the  courts  of  justice.  This  book 
is  famous  for  its  realism  ;  in  fact,  it  is  recognized  as 
one  of  the  earliest  and  most  brilliant  examples  of  that 
modern  style  of  novel  which,  beginning  where  Balzac 
left  off,  attempted  to  do  for  literature  what  the  photo- 
graph has  done  for  art.  For  those  who  take  the 
trouble  to  drink  out  of  the  cup  below  the  rim  of  honey, 
there  is  a  scene  where  realism  is  carried  to  its  ex- 
treme, —  surpassed  in  horror  by  no  writer,  unless  it 
be  the  one  whose  name  must  be  looked  for  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  alphabet,  as  if  its  natural  place  were  as  low 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  107 

down  in  the  dregs  of  realism  as  it  could  find  itself. 
This  is  the  death-bed  scene,  where  Madame  Bovary 
expires  in  convulsions.  The  author  must  .have  visited 
the  hospitals  for  the  purpose  of  watching  the  terrible 
agonies  he  was  to  depict,  tramping  from  one  bed  to 
another  until  he  reached  the  one  where  the  cries  and 
contortions  were  the  most  frightful.  Such  a  scene  he 
has  reproduced.  No  hospital  physician  would  have 
pictured  the  struggle  in  such  colors.  In  the  same 
way,  that  other  realist,  M.  Zola,  has  painted  a  patient 
suffering  from  delirium  tremens,  the  disease  known  to 
common  speech  as  "  the  horrors."  In  describing  this 
case  he  does  all  that  language  can  do  to  make  it  more 
horrible  than  the  reality.  He  gives  us,  not  realism, 
but  super-realism,  if  such  a  term  does  not  contradict 
itself. 

In  this  matter  of  the  literal  reproduction  of  sights 
and  scenes  which  our  natural  instinct  and  our  better 
informed  taste  and  judgment  teach  us  to  avoid,  art 
has  been  far  in  advance  of  literature.  It  is  three  hun- 
dred years  since  Joseph  Ribera,  more  commonly  known 
as  Spagnoletto,  was  born  in  the  province  Valencia,  in 
Spain.  We  had  the  misfortune  of  seeing  a  painting 
of  his  in  a  collection  belonging  to  one  of  the  French 
princes,  and  exhibited  at  the  Art  Museum.  It  was 
that  of  a  man  performing  upon  himself  the  operation 
known  to  the  Japanese  as  hara-kiri.  Many  persons 
who  looked  upon  this  revolting  picture  will  never  get 
rid  of  its  remembrance,  and  will  regret  the  day  when 
their  eyes  fell  upon  it.  I  should  share  the  offence  of 
the  painter  if  I  ventured  to  describe  it.  Ribera  was 
fond  of  depicting  just  such  odious  and  frightful  sub- 
jects. "  Saint  Lawrence  writhing  on  his  gridiron, 
Saint  Sebastian  full  of  arrows,  were  equally  a  source 


108  OVER   THE  TEACUPS. 

of  delight  to  him.  Even  in  subjects  which  had  no 
such  elements  of  horror  he  finds  the  materials  for  the 
delectation  of  his  ferocious  pencil ;  he  makes  up  for 
the  defect  by  rendering  with  a  brutal  realism  deform- 
ity and  ugliness." 

The  first  great  mistake  made  by  the  ultra-realists, 
like  Flaubert  and  Zola,  is,  as  I  have  said,  their  ignor 
ing  the  line  of  distinction  between  imaginative  art 
and  science.  We  can  find  realism  enough  in  books 
of  anatomy,  surgery,  and  medicine.  In  studying  the 
human  figure,  we  want  to  see  it  clothed  with  its  nat- 
ural integuments.  It  is  well  for  the  artist  to  study  the 
ecorche  in  the  dissecting-room,  but  we  do  not  want  the 
Apollo  or  the  Venus  to  leave  their  skins  behind  them 
when  they  go  into  the  gallery  for  exhibition.  Lan- 
cisi's  figures  show  us  how  the  great  statues  look  when 
divested  of  their  natural  covering.  It  is  instructive, 
but  useful  chiefly  as  a  means  to  aid  in  the  true  artistic 
reproduction  of  nature.  When  the  hospitals  are  in- 
vaded by  the  novelist,  he  should  learn  something  from 
the  physician  as  well  as  from  the  patients.  Science 
delineates  in  monochrome.  She  never  uses  high  tints 
and  strontian  lights  to  astonish  lookers-on.  Such 
scenes  as  Flaubert  and  Zola  describe  would  be  repro- 
duced in  their  essential  characters,  but  not  dressed  up 
in  picturesque  phrases.  That  is  the  first  stumbling- 
block  in  the  way  of  the  reader  of  such  realistic  stories 
as  those  to  which  I  have  referred.  There  are  subjects 
which  must  be  investigated  by  scientific  men  which 
most  educated  persons  would  be  glad  to  know  nothing 
about.  When  a  realistic  writer  like  Zola  surprises 
his  reader  into  a  kind  of  knowledge  he  never  thought 
of  wishing  for,  he  sometimes  harms  him  more  than  he 
has  any  idea  of  doing.  He  wants  to  produce  a  sensa- 


OVER   THE  TEACUPS.  109 

tion,  and  he  leaves  a  permanent  disgust  not  to  be  got 
rid  of.  Who  does  not  remember  odious  images  that 
can  never  be  washed  out  from  the  consciousness  which 
they  have  stained?  A  man's  vocabulary  is  terribly 
retentive  of  evil  words,  and  the  images  they  present 
cling  to  his  memory  and  will  not  loose  their  hold. 
One  who  has  had  the  mischance  to  soil  his  mind  by 
reading  certain  poems  of  Swift  will  never  cleanse  it  to 
its  original  whiteness.  Expressions  and  thoughts  of  a 
certain  character  stain  the  fibre  of  the  thinking  organ, 
and  in  some  degree  affect  the  hue  of  every  idea  that 
passes  through  the  discolored  tissues. 

This  is  the  gravest  accusation  to  bring  against  real- 
ism, old  or  recent,  whether  in  the  brutal  paintings  of 
Spagnoletto  or  in  the  unclean  revelations  of  Zola. 
Leave  the  description  of  the  drains  and  cesspools  to 
the  hygienic  specialist,  the  painful  facts  of  disease  to 
the  physician,  the  details  of  the  laundry  to  the  washer- 
woman. If  we  are  to  have  realism  in  its  tedious 
descriptions  of  unimportant  particulars,  let  it  be  of 
particulars  which  do  not  excite  disgust.  Such  is  the 
description  of  the  vegetables  in  Zola's  "  Ventre  de 
Paris, "  where,  if  one  wishes  to  see  the  apotheosis  of 
turnips,  beets,  and  cabbages,  he  can  find  them  glori- 
fied as  supremely  as  if  they  had  been  symbols  of  so 
many  deities ;  their  forms,  their  colors,  their  expres- 
sion, worked  upon  until  they  seem  as  if  they  were 
made  to  be  looked  at  and  worshipped  rather  than  to 
be  boiled  and  eaten. 

I  am  pleased  to  find  a  French  critic  of  M.  Flaubert 
expressing  ideas  with  which  many  of  my  own  entirely 
coincide.  "  The  great  mistake  of  the  realists,  "  he 
says,  "  is  that  they  profess  to  tell  the  truth  because 
they  tell  everything.  This  puerile  hunting  after  de- 


HO  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

tails,  this  cold  and  cynical  inventory  of  all  the  wretched 
conditions  in  the  midst  of  which  poor  humanity  vege- 
tates, not  only  do  not  help  us  to  understand  it  better, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  the  effect  on  the  spectators  is  a 
kind  of  dazzled  confusion  mingled  with  fatigue  and  dis- 
gust. The  material  truthfulness  to  which  the  school  of 
M.  Flaubert  more  especially  pretends  misses  its  aim 
in  going  beyond  it.  Truth  is  lost  in  its  own  excess." 

I  return  to  my  thoughts  on  the  relations  of  imagi- 
native art  in  all  its  forms  with  science.  The  subject 
which  in  the  hands  of  the  scientific  student  is  han- 
dled decorously,  —  reverently,  we  might  almost  say, 
—  becomes  repulsive,  shameful,  and  debasing  in  the 
unscrupulous  manipulations  of  the  low-bred  man  of 
letters. 

I  confess  that  I  am  a  little  jealous  of  certain  tend- 
encies in  our  own  American  literature,  which  led  one 
of  the  severest  and  most  outspoken  of  our  satirical 
fellow-countrymen,  no  longer  living  to  be  called  to 
account  for  it,  to  say,  in  a  moment  of  bitterness,  that 
the  mission  of  America  was  to  vulgarize  mankind.  I 
myself  have  sometimes  wondered  at  the  pleasure  some 
Old  World  critics  have  professed  to  find  in  the  most 
lawless  freaks  of  New  World  literature.  I  have  ques- 
tioned whether  their  delight  was  not  like  that  of  the 
Spartans  in  the  drunken  antics  of  their  Helots.  But 
I  suppose  I  belong  to  another  age,  and  must  not  at- 
tempt to  judge  the  present  by  my  old-fashioned  stand- 
ards. 

The  company  listened  very  civilly  to  these  remarks, 
whether  they  agreed  with  them  or  not.  I  am  not 
sure  that  I  want  all  the  young  people  to  think  just  as 
I  do  in  matters  of  critical  judgment.  New  wine  does 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  Ill 

not  go  well  into  old  bottles,  but  if  an  old  cask  has 
held  good  wine,  it  may  improve  a  crude  juice  to  stand 
awhile"  upon  the  lees  of  that  which  once  filled  it. 

I  thought  the  company  had  had  about  enough  of 
this  disquisition.  They  listened  very  decorously,  and 
the  Professor,  who  agrees  very  well  with  me,  as  1  hap- 
pen to  know,  in  my  views  on  this  business  of  realism, 
thanked  me  for  giving  them  the  benefit  of  my  opin- 
ion. 

The  silence  that  followed  was  broken  by  Number 
Seven's  suddenly  exclaiming,  — 

"  I  should  like  to  boss  creation  for  a  week  !  " 

This  expression  was  an  outbreak  suggested  by  some 
train  of  thought  which  Number  Seven  had  been  fol- 
lowing while  I  was  discoursing.  I  do  not  think  one 
of  the  company  looked  as  if  he  or  she  were  shocked 
by  it  as  an  irreligious  or  even  profane  speech.  It  is 
a  better  way  always,  in  dealing  with  one  of  those 
squinting  brains,  to  let  it  follow  out  its  own  thought. 
It  will  keep  to  it  for  a  while  ;  then  it  will  quit  the 
rail,  so  to  speak,  and  run  to  any  side-track  which  may 
present  itself. 

"  What  is  the  first  thing  you  would  do  ?  "  asked 
Number  Five  in  a  pleasant,  easy  way. 

"  The  first  thing  ?  Pick  out  a  few  thousand  of  the 
best  specimens  of  the  best  races,  and  drown  the  rest 
like  so  many  blind  puppies." 

"  Why,"  said  she,  "  that  was  tried  once,  and  does 
not  seem  to  have  worked  very  well." 

"  Very  likely.  You  mean  Noah's  flood,  I  suppose. 
More  people  nowadays,  and  a  better  lot  to  pick  from 
than  Noah  had." 

"  Do  tell  us  whom  you  would  take  with  you,"  said 
Number  Five. 


112  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

"  You,  if  you  would  go,"  he  answered,  and  I  thought 
I  saw  a  slight  flush  on  his  cheek.  "  But  I  did  n't 
say  that  I  should  go  aboard  the  new  ark  myself.  I 
am  not  sure  that  I  should.  No,  I  am  pretty  sure  that 
I  should  n't.  I  don't  believe,  on  the  whole,  it  would 
pay  me  to  save  myself.  I  ain't  of  much  account. 
But  I  could  pick  out  some  that  were." 

And  just  now  he  was  saying  that  he  should  like  to 
boss  the  universe  !  All  this  has  nothing  very  wonder- 
ful about  it.  Every  one  of  us  is  subject  to  alterna- 
tions of  overvaluation  and  undervaluation  of  our- 
selves. Do  you  not  remember  soliloquies  something 
like  this  ?  "  Was  there  ever  such  a  senseless,  stupid 
creature  as  I  am  ?  How  have  I  managed  to  keep  so 
long  out  of  the  idiot  asylum  ?  Undertook  to  write  a 
poem,  and  stuck  fast  at  the  first  verse.  Had  a  call 
from  a  friend  who  had  just  been  round  the  world. 
Did  n't  ask  him  one  word  about  what  he  had  seen  or 
heard,  but  gave  him  full  details  of  my  private  history, 
I  having  never  been  off  my  own  hearth-rug  for  more 
than  an  hour  or  two  at  a  time,  while  he  was  circum- 
navigating and  circumrailroading  the  globe.  Yes,  if 
anybody  can  claim  the  title,  I  am  certainly  the  prize 
idiot."  I  am  afraid  that  we  all  say  such  things  as  this 
to  ourselves  at  times.  Do  we  not  use  more  emphatic 
words  than  these  in  our  self -depreciation  ?  I  cannot 
say  how  it  is  with  others,  but  my  vocabulary  of  self- 
reproach  and  humiliation  is  so  rich  in  energetic  ex- 
pressions that  I  should  be  sorry  to  have  an  inter- 
viewer present  at  an  outburst  of  one  of  its  raging 
geysers,  its  savage  soliloquies.  A  man  is  a  kind  of 
inverted  thermometer,  the  bulb  uppermost,  and  the 
column  of  self-valuation  is  all  the  time  going  up  and 
down.  Number  Seven  is  very  much  like  other  people 
in  this  respect,  —  very  much  like  you  and  me. 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  113 

This  train  of  reflections  must  not  carry  me  away 
from  Number  Seven. 

"  If  I  can't  get  a  chance  to  boss  this  planet  for  a 
week  or  so,"  he  began  again,  "  I  think  I  could  write 
its  history,  —  yes,  the  history  of  the  world,  in  lesr 
compass  than  any  one  who  has  tried  it  so  far." 

"  You  know  Sir  Walter  Raleigh's  '  History  of  the 
World,'  of  course  ?  "  said  the  Professor. 

"  More  or  less,  —  more  or  less,"  said  Number  Sevei- 
prudently.  "But  I  don't  care  who  has  written  it 
before  me.  I  will  agree  to  write  the  story  of  two 
worlds,  this  and  the  next,  in  such  a  compact  way  that 
you  can  commit  them  both  to  memory  in  less  time 
than  you  can  learn  the  answer  to  the  first  question  in 
the  Catechism." 

What  he  had  got  into  his  head  we  could  not  guess, 
but  there  was  no  little  curiosity  to  discover  the  partic- 
ular bee  which  was  buzzing  in  his  bonnet.  He  evi- 
dently enjoyed  our  curiosity,  and  meant  to  keep  us 
waiting  awhile  before  revealing  the  great  secret. 

"  How  many  words  do  you  think  I  shall  want  ?  " 

It  is  a  formula,  I  suppose,  I  said,  and  I  will  grant 
you  a  hundred  words. 

"  Twenty,"  said  the  Professor.  "  That  was  more 
than  the  wise  men  of  Greece  wanted  for  their  grand 
utterances." 

The  two  Annexes  whispered  together,  and  the 
American  Annex  gave  their  joint  result.  One  thou- 
sand was  the  number  they  had  fixed  on.  They  were 
used  to  hearing  lectures,  and  could  hardly  conceive 
that  any  subject  could  be  treated  without  taking  up  a 
good  part  of  an  hour. 

"  Less  than  ten,"  said  Number  Five.  "  If  there 
are  to  be  more  than  ten,  I  don't  believe  that  Number 


114  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

Seven  would  think  the  surprise  would  be  up  to  our 
expectations." 

"  Guess  as  much  as  you  like,"  said  Number  Seven. 
''  The  answer  will  keep.  I  don't  mean  to  say  what  it 
is  until  we  are  ready  to  leave  the  table."  He  took  a 
blank  card  from  his  pocket-book,  wrote  something  on 
it,  or  appeared,  at  any  rate,  to  write,  and  handed  it, 
face  down,  to  the  Mistress.  What  was  on  the  card 
will  be  found  near  the  end  of  this  paper.  I  wonder 
if  anybody  will  be  curious  enough  to  look  further 
along  to  find  out  what  it  was  before  she  reads  the  next 
paragraph  ? 

In  the  mean  time  there  is  a  train  of  thought  sug- 
gested by  Number  Seven  and  his  whims.  If  you 
want  to  know  how  to  account  for  yourself,  study  the 
characters  of  your  relations.  All  of  our  brains  squint 
more  or  less.  There  is  not  one  in  a  hundred,  cer- 
tainly, that  does  not  sometimes  see  things  distorted 
by  double  refraction,  out  of  plumb  or  out  of  focus,  or 
with  colors  which  do  not  belong  to  it,  or  in  some  way 
betraying  that  the  two  halves  of  the  brain  are  not 
acting  in  harmony  with  each  other.  You  wonder  at 
the  eccentricities  of  this  or  that  connection  of  your 
own.  Watch  yourself,  and  you  will  find  impulses 
which,  but  for  the  restraints  you  put  upon  them,  would 
make  you  do  the  same  foolish  things  which  you  laugh 
at  in  that  cousin  of  yours.  I  once  lived  in  the  same 
house  with  the  near  relative  of  a  very  distinguished 
person,  whose  name  is  still  honored  and  revered  among 
us.  His  brain  was  an  active  one,  like  that  of  his 
famous  relative,  but  it  was  full  of  random  ideas,  un- 
connected trains  of  thought,  whims,  crotchets,  erratic 
suggestions.  Knowing  him,  I  could  interpret  the 
mental  characteristics  of  the  whole  family  connection 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  115 

in  the  light  of  its  exaggerated  peculiarities  as  exhib- 
ited in  my  odd  fellow-boarder.  Squinting  brains  are 
a  grea£  deal  more  common  than  we  should  at  first 
sight  believe.  Here  is  a  great  book,  a  solid  octavo  of 
five  hundred  pages,  full  of  the  vagaries  of  this  class 
of  organizations.  I  hope  to  refer  to  this  work  here- 
after, but  just  now  I  will  only  say  that,  after  reading 
till  one  is  tired  the  strange  fancies  of  the  squarers 
of  the  circle,  the  inventors  of  perpetual  motion,  and 
the  rest  of  the  moonstruck  dreamers,  most  persons 
will  confess  to  themselves  that  they  have  had  notions 
as  wild,  conceptions  as  extravagant,  theories  as  base- 
less, as  the  least  rational  of  those  which  are  here  re- 
corded. 

Some  day  I  want  to  talk  about  my  library.  It  is 
such  a  curious  collection  of  old  and  new  books,  such 
a  mosaic  of  learning  and  fancies  and  follies,  that 
a  glance  over  it  would  interest  the  company.  Per- 
haps I  may  hereafter  give  you  a  talk  about  books, 
but  while  I  am  saying  a  few  passing  words  upon  the 
subject  the  greatest  bibliographical  event  that  ever 
happened  in  the  book-market  of  the  New  World  is 
taking  place  under  our  eyes.  Here  is  Mr.  Bernard 
Quaritch  just  come  from  his  well-known  habitat,  No. 
15  Piccadilly,  with  such  a  collection  of  rare,  beauti- 
ful, and  somewhat  expensive  volumes  as  the  West- 
ern Continent  never  saw  before  on  the  shelves  of  a 
bibliopole. 

We  bookworms  are  all  of  us  now  and  then  betrayed 
into  an  extravagance.  The  keen  tradesmen  who  tempt 
us  are  like  the  fishermen  who  dangle  a  minnow,  a  frog, 
or  a  worm  before  the  perch  or  pickerel  who  may  be  on 
the  lookout  for  his  breakfast  But  Mr.  Quaritch 


116  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

comes  among  us  like  that  formidable  angler  of  whom 

it  is  said,  — 

His  hook  he  baited  with  a  dragon's  tail, 
And  sat  upon  a  rock  and  bobbed  for  whale. 

The  two  catalogues  which  herald  his  coming  are  them- 
selves interesting  literary  documents.  One  can  go 
out  with  a  few  shillings  in  his  pocket,  and  venture 
among  the  books  of  the  first  of  these  catalogues  with- 
out being  ashamed  to  show  himself  with  no  larger 
furnishing  of  the  means  for  indulging  his  tastes,  —  he 
will  find  books  enough  at  comparatively  modest  prices. 
But  if  one  feels  very  rich,  so  rich  that  it  requires  a 
good  deal  to  frighten  him,  let  him  take  the  other  cata- 
logue and  see  how  many  books  he  proposes  to  add  to 
his  library  at  the  prices  affixed.  Here  is  a  Latin 
Psalter  with  the  Canticles,  from  the  press  of  Fust  and 
Schoeffer,  the  second  book  issued  from  their  press,  the 
second  book  printed  with  a  date,  that  date  being 
1459.  There  are  only  eight  copies  of  this  work 
known  to  exist ;  you  can  have  one  of  them,  if  so  dis- 
posed, and  if  you  have  change  enough  in  your  pocket. 
Twenty-six  thousand  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars 
will  make  you  the  happy  owner  of  this  precious  vol- 
ume. If  this  is  more  than  you  want  to  pay,  you  can 
have  the  Gold  Gospels  of  Henry  VIII.,  on  purple 
vellum,  for  about  half  the  money.  There  are  pages 
on  pages  of  titles  of  works  any  one  of  which  would 
be  a  snug  little  property  if  turned  into  money  at  its 
catalogue  price. 

Why  will  not  our  multimillionaires  look  over  this 
catalogue  of  Mr.  Quaritch,  and  detain  some  of  its 
treasures  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  for  some  of 
our  public  libraries  ?  We  decant  the  choicest  wines 
of  Europe  into  our  cellars ;  we  ought  to  be  always 


OVER   THE  TEACUPS.  117 

decanting  the  precious  treasures  of  her  libraries  and 
galleries  into  our  own,  as  we  have  opportunity  and 
means-  As  to  the  means,  there  are  so  many  rich  peo- 
ple who  hardly  know  what  to  do  with  their  money 
that  it  is  well  to  suggest  to  them  any  new  useful  end 
to  which  their  superfluity  may  contribute.  I  am  not 
in  alliance  with  Mr.  Quaritch ;  in  fact,  I  am  afraid  of 
him,  for  if  I  stayed  a  single  hour  in  his  library,  where 
I  never  was  but  once,  and  then  for  fifteen  minutes 
only,  I  should  leave  it  so  much  poorer  than  I  entered 
it  that  I  should  be  reminded  of  the  picture  in  the  title- 
page  of  Fuller's  "Historie  of  the  Holy  Warre:" 
"  We  went  out  full.  We  returned  empty." 

—  After  the  teacups  were  all  emptied,  the  card 
containing  Number  Seven's  abridged  history  of  two 
worlds,  this  and  the  next,  was  handed  round. 

This  was  all  it  held  :  — 


After  all  had  looked  at  it,  it  was  passed  back  to 
me.  "  Let  The  Dictator  interpret  it,"  they  all  said. 

This  is  what  I  announced  as  my  interpretation  :  — 

Two  worlds,  the  higher  and  the  lower,  separated  by 
the  thinnest  of  partitions.  The  lower  world  is  that 
of  questions ;  the  upper  world  is  that  of  answers. 
Endless  doubt  and  unrest  here  below;  wondering, 
admiring,  adoring  certainty  above.  —  Am  I  not 
right  ? 

"  You  are  right,"  answered  Number  Seven  sol- 
emnly. "  That  is  my  revelation." 

The  following  poem  was  found  in  the  sugar-bowl. 
I  read  it  to  the  company. 


118  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

There  was  much  whispering  and  there  were  many 
conjectures  as  to  its  authorship,  but  every  Teacup 
looked  innocent,  and  we  separated  each  with  his  or 
her  private  conviction.  I  had  mine,  but  I  will  not 
mention  it. 

THE  ROSE  AND  THE  FERN. 

Lady,  life's  sweetest  lesson  wouldst  thou  learn, 

Come  thou  with  me  to  Love's  enchanted  bower : 
High  overhead  the  trellised  roses  burn  ; 
Beneath  thy  feet  behold  the  feathery  fern,  — 
A  leaf  without  a  flower. 

What  though  the  rose  leaves  fall  ?     They  still  are  sweet, 

And  have  been  lovely  in  their  beauteous  prime, 
While  the  bare  frond  seems  ever  to  repeat, 
"  For  us  no  bud,  no  blossom,  wakes  to  greet 
The  joyous  flowering  time  !  " 

Heed  thou  the  lesson.     Life  has  leaves  to  tread 

And  Sowers  to  cherish  ;  summer  round  thee  glows  ; 
Wait  not  till  autumn's  fading  robes  are  shed, 
But  while  its  petals  still  are  burning  red 
Gather  life's  full-blown  rose  ! 


VL 


OF  course  the  reading  of  the  poem  at  the  end  of  the 
last  paper  has  left  a  deep  impression.  I  strongly  sus- 
pect that  something  very  much  like  love-making  is  go- 
ing on  at  our  table.  A  peep  under  the  lid  of  the 
sugar-bowl  has  shown  me  that  there  is  another  poem 
ready  for  the  company.  That  receptacle  is  looked 
upon  with  an  almost  tremulous  excitement  by  more 
than  one  of  The  Teacups.  The  two  Annexes  turn  to- 
wards the  mystic  urn  as  if  the  lots  which  were  to  de- 
termine their  destiny  were  shut  up  in  it.  Number 
Five,  quieter,  and  not  betraying  more  curiosity  than 
belongs  to  the  sex  at  all  ages,  glances  at  the  sugar- 
bowl  now  and  then ;  looking  so  like  a  clairvoyant 
that  sometimes  I  cannot  help  thinking  she  must  be 
one.  There  is  a  sly  look  about  that  young  Doctor's 
eyes,  which  might  imply  that  he  knows  something 
about  what  the  silver  vessel  holds,  or  is  going  to  hold. 
The  Tutor  naturally  falls  under  suspicion,  as  he  is 
known  to  have  written  and  published  poems.  I  sup- 
pose the  Professor  and  myself  have  hardly  been  sus- 
pected of  writing  love-poems  ;  but  there  is  no  telling, 
—  there  is  no  telling.  Why  may  not  some  one  of  the 
lady  Teacups  have  played  the  part  of  a  masculine 
lover  ?  George  Sand,  George  Eliot,  Charles  Egbert 
Craddock,  made  pretty  good  men  in  print.  The  au- 
thoress of  "Jane  Eyre"  was  taken  for  a  man  by 
many  persons.  Can  Number  Five  be  masquerading 


120  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

in  verse  ?  Or  is  one  of  the  two  Annexes  the  make- 
believe  lover?  Or  did  these  girls  lay  their  heads  to- 
gether, and  send  the  poem  we  had  at  our  last  sitting 
to  puzzle  the  company  ?  It  is  certain  that  the  Mistress 
did  not  write  the  poem.  It  is  evident  that  Number 
Seven,  who  is  so  severe  in  his  talk  about  rhymesters, 
would  not,  if  he  could,  make  such  a  fool  of  himself  as 
to  set  up  for  a  "  poet."  "Why  should  not  the  Coun 
sellor  fall  in  love  and  write  verses?  A  good  many 
lawyers  have  been  "  poets." 

Perhaps  the  next  poem,  which  may  be  looked  for 
in  its  proper  place,  may  help  us  to  form  a  judgment. 
We  may  have  several  verse-writers  among  us,  and  if 
so  there  will  be  a  good  opportunity  for  the  exercise 
of  judgment  in  distributing  their  productions  among 
the  legitimate  claimants.  In  the  mean  time,  we  must 
not  let  the  love-making  and  the  song- writing  interfere 
with  the  more  serious  matters  which  these  papers  are 
expected  to  contain. 

Number  Seven's  compendious  and  comprehensive 
symbolism  proved  suggestive,  as  his  whimsical  notions 
often  do.  It  always  pleases  me  to  take  some  hint 
from  anything  he  says  when  I  can,  and  carry  it  out 
in  a  direction  not  unlike  that  of  his  own  remark.  I 
reminded  the  company  of  his  enigmatical  symbol. 

You  can  divide  mankind  in  the  same  way,  I  said. 
Two  words,  each  of  two  letters,  will  serve  to  distin- 
guish two  classes  of  human  beings  who  constitute  the 
principal  divisions  of  mankind.  Can  any  of  you  tell 
what  those  two  words  are  ? 

"  Give  me  five  letters,"  cried  Number  Seven,  "  and 
I  can  solve  your  problem  !  F-o-o-l-s,  —  those  five  let- 
ters will  give  you  the  first  and  largest  half.  For  the 
other  fraction  " — 


OVER   THE   TEACUPS.  121 

Oh,  but,  said  I,  I  restrict  you  absolutely  to  two  let- 
ters. If  you  are  going  to  take  five,  you  may  as  well 
take  t*venty  or  a  hundred. 

After  a  few  attempts,  the  company  gave  it  up.  The 
nearest  approach  to  the  correct  answer  was  Number 
Five's  guess  of  Oh  and  Ah :  Oh  signifying  eternal 
striving  after  an  ideal,  which  belongs  to  one  kind  of 
nature ;  and  Ah  the  satisfaction  of  the  other  kind  of 
nature,  which  rests  at  ease  in  what  it  has  attained. 

Good  !  I  said  to  Number  Five,  but  not  the  answer 
I  am  after.  The  great  division  between  human  beings 
is  into  the  Ifs  and  the  Ases. 

"  Is  the  last  word  to  be  spelt  with  one  or  two  s's  ?  " 
asked  the  young  Doctor. 

The  company  laughed  feebly  at  this  question.  I 
answered  it  soberly.  With  one  s.  There  are  more 
foolish  people  among  the  Ifs  than  there  are  among  the 
Ases. 

The  company  looked  puzzled,  and  asked  for  an  ex- 
planation. 

This  is  the  meaning  of  those  two  words  as  I  inter- 
pret them :  — 

If  it  were,  —  if  it  might  be,  —  if  it  could  be,  —  if 
it  had  been.  One  portion  of  mankind  go  through  life 
always  regretting,  always  whining,  always  imagining. 
These  are  the  people  whose  backbones  remain  cartilag- 
inous all  their  lives  long,  as  do  those  of  certain  other 
vertebrate  animals,  —  the  sturgeons,  for  instance.  A 
good  many  poets  must  be  classed  with  this  group  of 
vertebrates. 

As  it  is,  —  this  is  the  way  in  which  the  other  class 
of  people  look  at  the  conditions  in  which  they  find 
themselves.  They  may  be  optimists  or  pessimists,  — 
they  are  very  largely  optimists,  —  but,  taking  things 


122  OVER   THE  TEACUPS. 

just  as  they  find  them,  they  adjust  the  facts  to  their 
wishes  if  they  can  ;  and  if  they  cannot,  then  they  ad- 
just themselves  to  the  facts.  I  venture  to  say  that  if 
one  should  count  the  Ifs  and  the  Ases  in  the  conver- 
sation of  his  acquaintances,  he  would  find  the  more 
able  and  important  persons  among  them  —  statesmen, 
generals,  men  of  business  —  among  the  Ases,  and  the 
majority  of  the  conspicuous  failures  among  the  Ifs. 
I  don't  know  but  this  would  be  as  good  a  test  as  that 
of  Gideon,  —  lapping  the  water  or  taking  it  up  in  the 
hand.  I  have  a  poetical  friend  whose  conversation  is 
starred  as  thick  with  ifs  as  a  boiled  ham  is  with  cloves. 
But  another  friend  of  mine,  a  business  man,  whom  I 
trust  in  making  my  investments,  would  not  let  me 
meddle  with  a  certain  stock  which  I  fancied,  because, 
as  he  said,  "  there  are  too  many  ifs  in  it.  As  it  looks 
now,  I  would  n't  touch  it." 

I  noticed,  the  other  evening,  that  some  private  con- 
versation was  going  on  between  the  Counsellor  and 
the  two  Annexes.  There  was  a  mischievous  look  about 
the  little  group,  and  I  thought  they  were  hatching 
some  plot  among  them.  I  did  not  hear  what  the  Eng- 
lish Annex  said,  but  the  American  girl's  voice  was 
sharper,  and  I  overheard  what  sounded  to  me  like, 
"  It  is  time  to  stir  up  that  young  Doctor."  The  Coun- 
sellor looked  very  knowing,  and  said  that  he  would 
find  a  chance  before  long.  I  was  rather  amused  to 
see  how  readily  he  entered  into  the  project  of  the 
young  people.  The  fact  is,  the  Counsellor  is  young 
for  his  time  of  life ;  for  he  already  betrays  some  signs 
of  the  change  referred  to  in  that  once  familiar  street 
song,  which  my  friend,  the  great  American  surgeon, 
inquired  for  at  the  music-shops  under  the  title,  as  he 
got  it  from  the  Italian  minstrel, 


OVER  THE   TEACUPS.  123 

"  Silva  tredi  mondi  goo." 

I  saw,  soon  after  this,  that  the  Counsellor  was  watch- 
ing hie  chance  to  "  stir  up  the  young  Doctor." 

It  does  not  follow,  because  our  young  Doctor's  bald 
spot  is  slower  in  coming  than  he  could  have  wished, 
that  he  has  not  had  time  to  form  many  sound  conclu- 
sions in  the  calling  to  which  he  has  devoted  himself. 
Vesalius,  the  father  of  modern  descriptive  anatomy, 
published  his  great  work  on  that  subject  before  he  was 
thirty.  Bichat,  the  great  anatomist  and  physiologist, 
who  died  near  the  beginning  of  this  century,  published 
his  treatise,  which  made  a  revolution  in  anatomy  and 
pathology,  at  about  the  same  age  ;  dying  soon  after  he 
had  reached  the  age  of  thirty.  So,  possibly  the  Coun- 
sellor may  find  that  he  has  "  stirred  up  "  a  young  man 
who  can  take  care  of  his  own  head,  in  case  of  aggres- 
sive movements  in  its  direction. 

"Well,  Doctor,"  the  Counsellor  began,  "how  are 
stocks  in  the  measles  market  about  these  times  ?  Any 
corner  in  bronchitis  ?  Any  syndicate  in  the  vaccina- 
tion business  ?  "  All  this  playfully. 

"  I  can't  say  how  it  is  with  other  people's  patients ; 
most  of  my  families  are  doing  very  well  without  my 
help,  at  this  time." 

"  Do  tell  me,  Doctor,  how  many  families  you  own. 
I  have  heard  it  said  that  some  of  our  fellow-citizens 
have  two  distinct  families,  but  you  speak  as  if  you  had 
a  dozen." 

"  I  have,  but  not  so  large  a  number  as  I  should  like. 
I  could  take  care  of  fifteen  or  twenty  more  without 
having  to  work  too  hard." 

"  Why,  Doctor,  you  are  as  bad  as  a  Mormon.  What 
do  you  mean  by  calling  certain  families  yours  f  " 

"  Don't  you  speak  about  my  client  ?     Don't  your 


124  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

clients  call  you  their  lawyer  ?  Does  n't  your  baker, 
does  n't  your  butcher,  speak  of  the  families  he  supplies 
as  his  families  ?  " 

"  To  be  sure,  yes,  of  course  they  do ;  but  I  had  a 
notion  that  a  man  had  as  many  doctors  as  he  had 
organs  to  be  doctored." 

"  Well,  there  is  some  truth  in  that ;  but  did  you 
think  the  old-fashioned  family  doctor  was  extinct,  — 
a  fossil  like  the  megatherium  ?  " 

"  Why,  yes,  after  the  recent  experience  of  a  friend 
of  mine,  I  did  begin  to  think  that  there  would  soon 
be  no  such  personage  left  as  that  same  old-fashioned 
family  doctor.  Shall  I  tell  you  what  that  experience 
was?" 

The  young  Doctor  said  he  should  be  mightily  pleased 
to  hear  it.  He  was  going  to  be  one  of  those  old-fogy 
practitioners  himself. 

"  I  don't  know,"  the  Counsellor  said,  "  whether  my 
friend  got  all  the  professional  terms  of  his  story  cor- 
rectly, nor  whether  I  have  got  them  from  him  without 
making  any  mistakes ;  but  if  I  do  make  blunders  in 
some  of  the  queer  names,  you  can  correct  me.  This 
is  my  friend's  story  :  — 

" '  My  family  doctor,'  he  said,  '  was  a  very  sensible 
man,  educated  at  a  school  where  they  professed  to 
teach  all  the  specialties,  but  not  confining  himself  to 
any  one  branch  of  medical  practice.  Surgical  prac- 
tice he  did  not  profess  to  meddle  with,  and  there  were 
some  classes  of  patients  whom  he  was  willing  to  leave 
to  the  female  physician.  But  throughout  the  range 
of  diseases  not  requiring  exceptionally  skilled  manual 
interference,  his  education  had  authorized  him  to  con- 
sider himself,  and  he  did  consider  himself,  qualified  to 
undertake  the  treatment  of  all  ordinary  cases.  It  so 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  125 

happened  that  my  young  wife  was  one  of  those  uneasy 
persons  who  are  never  long  contented  with  their  habit- 
ual comforts  and  blessings,  but  always  trying  to  find 
something  a  little  better,  something  newer,  at  any  rate. 
I  was  getting  to  be  near  fifty  years  old,  and  it  Imp- 
pened  to  me,  as  it  not  rarely  does  to  people  at  about 
that  time  of  life,  that  my  hair  began  to  fall  out.  I 
spoke  of  it  to  my  doctor,  who  smiled,  said  it  was  a  part 
of  the  process  of  reversed  evolution,  but  might  be  re- 
tarded a  little,  and  gave  me  a  prescription.  I  did  not 
find  any  great  effect  from  it,  and  my  wife  would  have 
me  go  to  a  noted  dermatologist.  The  distinguished 
specialist  examined  my  denuded  scalp  with  great  care. 
He  looked  at  it  through  a  strong  magnifier.  He  ex- 
amined the  bulb  of  a  fallen  hair  in  a  powerful  micro- 
scope. He  deliberated  for  a  while,  and  then  said, 
"  This  is  a  case  of  alopecia.  It  may  perhaps  be  par- 
tially remedied.  I  will  give  you  a  prescription.'' 
Which  he  did,  and  told  me  to  call  again  in  a  fort- 
night. At  the  end  of  three  months  I  had  called  six 
times,  and  each  time  got  a  new  recipe,  and  detected 
no  difference  in  the  course  of  my  "  alopecia."  After 
I  had  got  through  my  treatment,  I  showed  my  recipes 
to  my  family  physician  ;  and  we  found  that  three  of 
them  were  the  same  he  had  used,  familiar,  old-fash- 
ioned remedies,  and  the  others  were  taken  from  a  list 
of  new  and  little-tried  prescriptions  mentioned  in  one 
of  the  last  medical  journals,  which  was  lying  on  the  old 
doctor's  table.  I  might  as  well  have  got  no  better  un- 
der his  charge,  and  should  have  got  off  much  cheaper. 
" '  The  next  trouble  I  had  was  a  little  redness  of  the 
eyes,  for  which  my  doctor  gave  me  a  wash ;  but  my 
wife  would  have  it  that  I  must  see  an  oculist.  So  I 
made  four  visits  to  an  oculist,  and  at  the  last  visit  the 


126  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

redness  was  nearly  gone,  —  as  it  ought  to  have  been 
by  that  time.  The  specialist  called  my  complaint  con- 
junctivitis, but  that  did  not  make  it  feel  any  better 
nor  get  well  any  quicker.  If  I  had  had  a  cataract  or 
any  grave  disease  of  the  eye,  requiring  a  nice  opera- 
tion on  that  delicate  organ,  of  course  I  should  have 
properly  sought  the  aid  of  an  expert,  whose  eye,  hand, 
and  judgment  were  trained  to  that  special  business ; 
but  in  this  case  I  don't  doubt  that  my  family  doctor 
would  have  done  just  as  well  as  the  expert.  How- 
ever, I  had  to  obey  orders,  and  my  wife  would  have  it 
that  I  should  entrust  my  precious  person  only  to  the 
most  skilful  specialist  in  each  department  of  medical 
practice. 

"  4  In  the  course  of  the  year  I  experienced  a  variety 
of  slight  indispositions.  For  these  I  was  auriscoped 
by  an  aurist,  laryngoscoped  by  a  laryngologist,  aus- 
culted  by  a  stethoscopist,  and  so  on,  until  a  complete 
inventory  of  my  organs  was  made  out,  and  I  found 
that  if  I  believed  all  these  searching  inquirers  pro- 
fessed to  have  detected  in  my  unfortunate  person,  I 
could  repeat  with  too  literal  truth  the  words  of  the 
General  Confession,  "  And  there  is  no  health  in  us." 
I  never  heard  so  many  hard  names  in  all  my  life.  I 
proved  to  be  the  subject  of  a  long  catalogue  of  dis- 
eases, and  what  maladies  I  was  not  manifestly  guilty 
of  I  was  at  least  suspected  of  harboring.  I  was 
handed  along  all  the  way  from  alopecia,  which  used 
to  be  called  baldness,  to  zoster,  which  used  to  be 
known  as  shingles.  I  was  the  patient  of  more  than  a 
dozen  specialists.  Very  pleasant  persons,  many  of 
them,  but  what  a  fuss  they  made  about  my  trifling 
incommodities  !  Please  look  at  that  photograph.  See 
if  there  is  a  minute  elevation  under  one  eye.' 


OVER   THE  TEACUPS.  127 

" 4  On  which  side  ? '  I  asked  him,  for  I  could  not 
be  sure  there  was  anything  different  on  one  side  from 
what  I  saw  on  the  other. 

" '  Under  the  left  eye.  I  called  it  a  pimple  ;  the 
specialist  called  it  acne.  Now  look  at  this  photo- 
graph. It  was  taken  after  my  acne  had  been  three 
months  under  treatment.  It  shows  a  little  more  dis- 
tinctly than  in  the  first  photograph,  does  n't  it  ? ' 

" '  I  think  it  does,'  I  answered.  '  It  does  n't  seem 
to  me  that  you  gained  a  great  deal  by  leaving  your 
customary  adviser  for  the  specialist.' 

" '  Well,'  my  friend  continued,  '  following  my 
wife's  urgent  counsel,  I  kept  on,  as  I  told  you,  for  a. 
whole  year  with  my  specialists,  going  from  head  to 
foot,  and  tapering  off  with  a  chiropodist.  I  got  a 
deal  of  amusement  out  o£  their  contrivances  and  ex- 
periments. Some  of  them  lighted  up  my  internal  sur- 
faces with  electrical  or  other  illuminating  apparatus. 
Thermometers,  dynamometers,  exploring-tubes,  little 
mirrors  that  went  half-way  down  to  my  stomach,  tun- 
ing-forks, ophthalmoscopes,  percussion-hammers,  sin- 
gle and  double  stethoscopes,  speculuins,  sphygmome- 
ters,  —  such  a  battery  of  detective  instruments  I  had 
never  imagined.  All  useful,  I  don't  doubt ;  but  at 
the  end  of  the  year  I  began  to  question  whether  I 
should  n't  have  done  about  as  well  to  stick  to  my  long- 
tried  practitioner.  When  the  bills  for  "  professional 
services  "  came  in,  and  the  new  carpet  had  to  be  given 
up,  and  the  old  bonnet  trimmed  over  again,  and  the 
sealskin  sack  remained  a  vision,  we  both  agreed,  my 
wife  and  I,  that  we  would  try  to  get  along  without 
consulting  specialists,  except  in  such  cases  as  our  fanv 
ily  physician  considered  to  be  beyond  his  skill.' ' 


128  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

The  Counsellor's  story  of  his  friend's  experiences 
seemed  to  please  the  young  Doctor  very  much.  It 
"  stirred  him  up,"  but  in  an  agreeable  way  ;  for,  as 
he  said,  he  meant  to  devote  himself  to  family  practice, 
and  not  to  adopt  any  limited  class  of  cases  as  a  spe- 
cialty. I  liked  his  views  so  well  that  I  should  have 
been  ready  to  adopt  them  as  my  own,  if  they  had  been 
shallenged. 

The  young  Doctor  discourses. 

"  I  am  very  glad,"  he  said,  "  that  we  have  a  num- 
ber of  practitioners  among  us  who  confine  themselves 
to  the  care  of  single  organs  and  their  functions.  I 
want  to  be  able  to  consult  an  oculist  who  has  done 
nothing  but  attend  to  eyes  long  enough  to  know  all 
that  is  known  about  their  diseases  and  their  treat- 
ment, —  skilful  enough  to  be  trusted  with  the  manip- 
ulation of  that  delicate  and  most  precious  organ.  I 
want  an  aurist  who  knows  all  about  the  ear  and  what 
can  be  done  for  its  disorders.  The  maladies  of  the 
larynx  are  very  ticklish  things  to  handle,  and  nobody 
should  be  trusted  to  go  behind  the  epiglottis  who  has 
not  the  tactus  eruditus.  And  so  of  certain  other  par- 
ticular classes  of  complaints.  A  great  city  must  have 
a  limited  number  of  experts,  each  a  final  authority,  to 
be  appealed  to  in  cases  where  the  family  physician 
finds  himself  in  doubt.  There  are  operations  which 
no  surgeon  should  be  willing  to  undertake  unless  he 
has  paid  a  particular,  if  not  an  exclusive,  attention  to 
the  cases  demanding  such  operations.  All  this  I  will- 
ingly grant. 

"  But  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  we  can  return 
to  the  methods  of  the  old  Egyptians  —  who,  if  my 
memory  serves  me  correctly,  had  a  special  physician 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  129 

for  every  part  of  the  body  —  without  falling  into  cer- 
tain errors  and  incurring  certain  liabilities. 

"  The  specialist  is  much  like  other  people  engaged 
in  lucrative  business.  He  is  apt  to  magnify  his  call- 
ing, to  make  much  of  any  symptom  which  will  bring 
a  patient  within  range  of  his  battery  of  remedies.  I 
found  a  case  in  one  of  our  medical  journals,  a  couple 
of  years  ago,  which  illustrates  what  I  mean.  Dr. 

,  of  Philadelphia,  had  a  female  patient  with  a 

crooked  nose,  —  deviated  septum,  if  our  young  schol- 
ars like  that  better.  She  was  suffering  from  what  the 
doctor  called  reflex  headache.  She  had  been  to  an 
oculist,  who  found  that  the  trouble  was  in  her  eyes. 
She  went  from  him  to  a  gynecologist,  who  considered 
her  headache  as  owing  to  causes  for  which  his  spe- 
cialty had  the  remedies.  How  many  more  specialists 
would  have  appropriated  her,  if  she  had  gone  the 
rounds  of  them  all,  I  dare  not  guess  ;  but  you  remem- 
ber the  old  story  of  the  siege,  in  which  each  artisan 
proposed  means  of  defence  which  he  himself  was 
ready  to  furnish.  Then  a  shoemaker  said,  '  Hang 
your  walls  with  new  boots.' 

"  Human  nature  is  the  same  with  medical  specialists 
as  it  was  with  ancient  cordwainers,  and  it  is  too  possi- 
ble that  a  hungry  practitioner  may  be  warped  by  his 
interest  in  fastening  on  a  patient  who,  as  he  persuades 
himself,  comes  under  his  medical  jurisdiction.  The 
specialist  has  but  one  fang  with  which  to  seize  and 
hold  his  prey,  but  that  fang  is  a  fearfully  long  and 
sharp  canine.  Being  confined  to  a  narrow  field  of 
observation  and  practice,  he  is  apt  to  give  much  of 
his  time  to  curious  study,  which  may  be  magnifiqUe, 
but  is  not  exactly  la  guerre  against  the  patient's 
malady.  He  divides  and  subdivides,  and  gets  many 


130  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

varieties  of  diseases,  in  most  respects  similar.  These 
he  equips  with  new  names,  and  thus  we  have  those  ter- 
rific nomenclatures  which  are  enough  to  frighten  the 
medical  student,  to  say  nothing  of  the  sufferers  stag- 
gering under  this  long  catalogue  of  local  infirmities. 
The  '  old-fogy '  doctor,  who  knows  the  family  tenden- 
cies of  his  patient,  who  '  understands  his  constitution,' 
will  often  treat  him  better  than  the  famous  specialist, 
who  sees  him  for  the  first  time,  and  has  to  guess  at 
many  things  '  the  old  doctor  '  knows  from  his  previous 
experience  with  the  same  patient  and  the  family  to 
which  he  belongs. 

"  It  is  a  great  luxury  to  practise  as  a  specialist  in 
almost  any  class  of  diseases.  The  special  practitioner 
has  his  own  hours,  hardly  needs  a  night-bell,  can  have 
his  residence  out  of  the  town  in  which  he  exercises  his 
calling,  —  in  short,  lives  like  a  gentleman  ;  while  the 
hard-worked  general  practitioner  submits  to  a  servi- 
tude more  exacting  than  that  of  the  man  who  is  em- 
ployed in  his  stable  or  in  his  kitchen.  That  is  the 
kind  of  life  I  have  made  up  my  mind  to." 

The  teaspoons  tinkled  all  round  the  table.  This 
was  the  usual  sign  of  approbation,  instead  of  the  clap- 
ping of  hands. 

The  young  Doctor  paused,  and  looked  round  among 
The  Teacups.  "I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said,  "for 
taking  up  so  much  of  your  time  with  medicine.  It  is 
a  subject  that  a  good  many  persons,  especially  ladies, 
take  an  interest  in  and  have  a  curiosity  about,  but  I 
have  no  right  to  turn  this  tea-table  into  a  lecture  plat- 
form." 

"  We  should  like  to  hear  you  talk  longer  about  it,'' 
said  the  English  Annex.  "  One  of  us  has  thought  of 
devoting  herself  to  the  practice  of  medicine.  Would 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  131 

you  lecture  to  us,  if  you  were  a  professor  in  one  of 
the  great  medical  schools  ?  " 

"  Lecture  to  students  of  your  sex  ?  Why  not,  I 
should  like  to  know  ?  I  don't  think  it  is  the  calling 
for  which  the  average  woman  is  especially  adapted, 
but  my  teacher  got  a  part  of  his  medical  education 
from  a  lady,  Madame  Lachapelle;  and  I  don't  see 
why,  if  one  can  learn  from  a  woman,  he  may  not 
teach  a  woman,  if  he  knows  enough." 

"  We  all  like  a  little  medical  talk  now  and  then," 
said  Number  Five,  "  and  we  are  much  obliged  to  you 
for  your  discourse.  You  are  specialist  enough  to  take 
care  of  a  sprained  ankle,  I  suppose,  are  you  not?" 

"  I  hope  I  should  be  equal  to  that  emergency,"  an- 
swered the  young  Doctor ;  "  but  I  trust  you  are  not 
suffering  from  any  such  accident  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Number  Five,  "  but  there  is  no  telling 
what  may  happen.  I  might  slip,  and  get  a  sprain  or 
break  a  sinew,  or  something,  and  I  should  like  to 
know  that  there  is  a  practitioner  at  hand  to  take 
care  of  my  injury.  I  think  I  would  risk  myself  in 
your  hands,  although  you  are  not  a  specialist.  Would 
you  venture  to  take  charge  of  the  case  ?  " 

"Ah,  my  dear  lady,"  he  answered  gallantly,  "  the 
risk  would  be  in  the  other  direction.  I  am  afraid  it 
would  be  safer  for  your  doctor  if  he  were  an  older  man 
than  I  am." 

This  is  the  first  clearly,  indisputably  sentimental 
outbreak  which  has  happened  in  conversation  at  our 
table.  I  tremble  to  think  what  will  come  of  it ;  for 
we  have  several  inflammable  elements  in  our  circle, 
and  a  spark  like  this  is  liable  to  light  on  any  one  or 
two  of  them. 


132  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

I  was  not  sorry  that  this  medical  episode  came  in 
to  very  the  usual  course  of  talk  at  our  table.  I  like 
to  have  one  of  an  intelligent  company,  who  knows 
anything  thoroughly,  hold  the  floor  for  a  time,  and 
discourse  upon  the  subject  which  chiefly  engages  hio 
daily  thoughts  and  furnishes  his  habitual  occupation. 
It  is  a  privilege  to  meet  such  a  person  now  and  then, 
and  let  him  have  his  full  swing.  But  because  there 
are  "  professionals  "  to  whom  we  are  willing  to  listen 
as  oracles,  I  do  not  want  to  see  everybody  who  is  not 
a  "  professional "  silenced  or  snubbed,  if  he  ventures 
into  any  field  of  knowledge  which  he  has  not  made 
especially  his  own.  I  like  to  read  Montaigne's  re- 
marks about  doctors,  though  he  never  took  a  medical 
degree.  I  can  even  enjoy  the  truth  in  the  sharp  satire 
of  Voltaire  on  the  medical  profession.  I  frequently 
prefer  the  remarks  I  hear  from  the  pew  after  the  ser- 
mon to  those  I  have  just  been  hearing  from  the  pul- 
pit. There  are  a  great  many  things  which  I  never 
expect  to  comprehend,  but  which  I  desire  very  much 
to  apprehend.  Suppose  that  our  circle  of  Teacups 
were  made  up  of  specialists,  —  experts  in  various  de- 
partments. I  should  be  very  willing  that  each  one 
should  have  his  innings  at  the  proper  time,  when  the 
company  were  ready  for  him.  But  the  time  is  coming 
when  everybody  will  know  something  about  every- 
thing. How  can  one  have  the  illustrated  magazines, 
the  "Popular  Science  Monthly,"  the  psychological 
journals,  the  theological  periodicals,  books  on  all  sub- 
jects, forced  on  his  attention,  in  their  own  persons,  so 
to  speak,  or  in  the  reviews  which  analyze  and  pass 
judgment  upon  them,  without  getting  some  ideas  which 
belong  to  many  provinces  of  human  intelligence? 
The  air  we  breathe  is  made  up  of  four  elements,  at 


OVER   THE  TEACUPS.  133 

least :  oxygen,  nitrogen,  carbonic  acid  gas,  and  know- 
ledge. There  is  something  quite  delightful  to  witness 
in  the  absorption  and  devotion  of  a  genuine  specialist. 
There  is  a  certain  sublimity  in  that  picture  of  the 
dying  scholar  in  Browning's  "  A  Grammarian's  Fu- 
neral :  "  — 

"  So  with  the  throttling  hands  of  death  at  strife, 

Ground  he  at  grammar  ; 
Still,  through  the  rattle,  parts  of  speech  were  rife  ; 

While  he  could  stammer 
He  settled  HotVs  business  —  let  it  be  — 

Properly  based  Oun  — 
Gave  us  the  doctrine  of  the  enclitic  De, 
Dead  from  the  waist  down." 

A  genuine  enthusiasm,  which  will  never  be  satisfied 
until  it  has  pumped  the  well  dry  at  the  bottom  of 
which  truth  is  lying,  always  excites  our  interest,  if  not 
our  admiration. 

One  of  the  pleasantest  of  our  American  writers, 
whom  we  all  remember  as  Ik  Marvel,  and  greet  in 
his  more  recent  appearance  as  Donald  Grant  Mitchell, 
speaks  of  the  awkwardness  which  he  feels  in  offering 
to  the  public  a  "  panoramic  view  of  British  writers  in 
these  days  of  specialists,  —  when  students  devote  half 
a  lifetime  to  the  analysis  of  the  works  of  a  single 
author,  and  to  the  proper  study  of  a  single  period." 

He  need  not  have  feared  that  his  connected  sketches 
of  "English  Lands,  Letters  and  Kings"  would  be 
any  less  welcome  because  they  do  not  pretend  to  fill 
up  all  the  details  or  cover  all  the  incidents  they  hint 
in  vivid  outline.  How  many  of  us  ever  read  or  ever 
will  read  Drayton's  "  Poly-Olbion  ?  "  Twenty  thou- 
sand long  Alexandrines  are  filled  with  admirable 
descriptions  of  scenery,  natural  productions,  and  his- 
torical events,  but  how  many  of  us  in  these  days  have 


134  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

time  to  read  and  inwardly  digest  twenty  thousand 
Alexandrine  verses  ?  I  fear  that  the  specialist  is  apt 
to  hold  his  intelligent  reader  or  hearer  too  cheap.  So 
far  as  I  have  observed  in  medical  specialties,  what  he 
knows  in  addition  to  the  knowledge  of  the  well-taught 
general  practitioner  is  very  largely  curious  rather  than 
important.  Having  exhausted  all  that  is  practical,1 
the  specialist  is  naturally  tempted  to  amuse  himself 
with  the  natural  history  of  the  organ  or  function  he 
deals  with ;  to  feel  as  a  writing-master  does  when  he 
sets  a  copy,  —  not  content  to  shape  the  letters  prop- 
erly, but  he  must  add  flourishes  and  fancy  figures,  to 
let  off  his  spare  energy. 

I  am  beginning  to  be  frightened.  When  I  began 
these  papers,  my  idea  was  a  very  simple  and  innocent 
one.  Here  was  a  mixed  company,  of  various  condi- 
tions, as  I  have  already  told  my  readers,  who  came  to- 
gether regularly,  and  before  they  were  aware  of  it 
formed  something  like  a  club  or  association.  As  I 
was  the  patriarch  among  them,  they  gave  me  the  name 
some  of  you  may  need  to  be  reminded  of  ;  for  as  these 
reports  are  published  at  intervals,  you  may  not  remem- 
ber the  fact  that  I  am  what  The  Teacups  have  seen  fit 
to  call  The  Dictator. 

Now,  what  did  I  expect  when  I  began  these  papers, 
and  what  is  it  that  has  begun  to  frighten  me  ? 

I  expected  to  report  grave  conversations  and  light 
colloquial  passages  of  arms  among  the  members  of  the 
circle.  I  expected  to  hear,  perhaps  to  read,  a  paper 
now  and  then.  I  expected  to  have,  from  time  to  time, 
a  poem  from  some  one  of  The  Teacups,  for  I  felt  sure 
there  must  be  among  them  one  or  more  poets,  —  Tea- 
cups of  the  finer  and  rarer  translucent  kind  of  porce- 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  135 

lain,  to  speak  metaphorically.  Out  of  these  conversa- 
tions and  written  contributions  I  thought  I  might 
make  up  a  readable  series  of  papers ;  a  not  wholly 
unwelcome  string  of  recollections,  anticipations,  sug- 
gestions, too  often  perhaps  repetitions,  that  would  be 
the  twilight  to  what  my  earlier  series  had  been  to  the 
morning. 

I  hoped  also  that  I  should  come  into  personal  re- 
lations with  my  old  constituency,  if  I  may  call  my 
nearer  friends,  and  those  more  distant  ones  who  be- 
long to  my  reading  parish,  by  that  name.  It  is  time 
that  I  should.  I  received  this  blessed  morning  —  I 
am  telling  the  literal  truth  —  a  highly  flattering  obit- 
uary of  myself  in  the  shape  of  an  extract  from  "  Le 
National "  of  the  10th  of  February  last.  This  is  a 
bi-weekly  newspaper,  published  in  French,  in  the  city 
of  Plattsburg,  Clinton  County,  New  .York.  I  am 
occasionally  reminded  by  my  unknown  friends  that  1 
must  hurry  up  their  autograph,  or  make  haste  to  copy 
that  poem  they  wish  to  have  in  the  author's  own  hand- 
writing, or  it  will  be  too  late ;  but  I  have  never  be- 
fore  been  huddled  out  of  the  world  in  this  way.  I 
take  this  rather  premature  obituary  as  a  hint  that, 
unless  I  come  to  some  arrangement  with  my  well- 
meaning  but  insatiable  correspondents,  it  would  be  as 
well  to  leave  it  in  type,  for  I  cannot  bear  much  longer 
the  load  they  lay  upon  me.  I  will  explain  myself  on 
this  point  after  I  have  told  my  readers  what  has 
frightened  me. 

I  am  beginning  to  think  this  room  where  we  take 
our  tea  is  more  like  a  tinder-box  than  a  quiet  and  safe 
place  for  "  a  party  in  a  parlor."  It  is  true  that  there 
are  at  least  two  or  three  incoinbustibles  at  our  table, 
but  it  looks  to  me  as  if  the  company  might  pair  off 


136  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

before  the  season  is  over,  like  the  crew  of  Her  Maj- 
esty's ship  the  Mantelpiece,  —  three  or  four  weddings 
clear  our  whole  table  of  all  but  one  or  two  of  the  im- 
pregnables.  The  poem  we  found  in  the  sugar-bowl 
last  week  first  opened  my  eyes  to  the  probable  state  of 
things.  Now,  the  idea  of  having  to  tell  a  love-story, 
—  perhaps  two  or  three  love-stories,  —  when  I  set  out 
with  the  intention  of  repeating  instructive,  useful,  or 
entertaining  discussions,  naturally  alarms  me.  It  is 
quite  true  that  many  things  which  look  to  me  suspi- 
cious may  be  simply  playful.  Young  people  (and  we 
have  several  such  among  The  Teacups)  are  fond  of 
make-believe  courting  when  they  cannot  have  the  real 
thing,  —  "  flirting,"  as  it  used  to  be  practised  in  the 
days  of  Arcadian  innocence,  not  the  more  modern  and 
more  questionable  recreation  which  has  reached  us 
from  the  home  of  the  cicisbeo.  Whatever  comes  of  it, 
I  shall  tell  what  I  see,  and  take  the  consequences. 

But  I  am  at  this  moment  going  to  talk  in  my  own 
proper  person  to  my  own  particular  public,  which,  as 
I  find  by  my  correspondence,  is  a  very  considerable 
one,  and  with  which  I  consider  myself  in  exceptionally 
pleasant  relations. 

I  have  read  recently  that  Mr.  Gladstone  receives 
six  hundred  letters  a  day.  Perhaps  he  does  not  re- 
ceive six  hundred  letters  every  day,  but  if  he  gets  any- 
thing like  half  that  number  daily,  what  can  he  do  with 
them  ?  There  was  a  time  when  he  was  said  to  answer 
all  his  correspondents.  It  is  understood,  I  think,  that 
he  has  given  up  doing  so  in  these  later  days. 

I  do  not  pretend  that  I  receive  six  hundred  or  even 
sixty  letters  a  day,  but  I  do  receive  a  good  many,  and 
have  told  the  public  of  the  fact  from  time  to  time, 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  187 

under  the  pressure  of  their  constantly  increasing  exac- 
tions. As  it  is  extremely  onerous,  and  is  soon  going 
to  be  impossible,  for  me  to  keep  up  the  wide  range  of 
correspondence  which  has  become  a  lai'ge  part  of  my 
occupation,  and  tends  to  absorb  all  the  vital  force 
which  is  left  me,  I  wish  to  enter  into  a  final  explana 
tion  with  the  well-meaning  but  merciless  taskmasters 
who  have  now  for  many  years  been  levying  their  daily 
tax  upon  me.  I  have  preserved  thousands  of  their 
letters,  and  destroyed  a  very  large  number,  after  an- 
swering most  of  them.  A  few  interesting  chapters 
might  be  made  out  of  the  letters  I  have  kept, — not 
only  such  as  are  signed  by  the  names  of  well-known 
personages,  but  many  from  unknown  friends,  of  whom 
I  had  never  heard  before  and  have  never  heard  since. 
A  great  deal  of  the  best  writing  the  languages  of  the 
world  have  ever  known  has  been  committed  to  leaves 
that  withered  out  of  sight  before  a  second  sunlight 
had  fallen  upon  them.  I  have  had  many  letters  I 
should  have  liked  to  give  the  public,  had  their  nature 
admitted  of  their  being  offered  to  the  world.  What 
struggles  of  young  ambition,  finding  no  place  for  its 
energies,  or  feeling  its  incapacity  to  reach  the  ideal 
towards  which  it  was  striving !  What  longings  of 
disappointed,  defeated  fellow-mortals,  trying  to  find  a 
new  home  for  themselves  in  the  heart  of  one  whom 
they  have  amiably  idealized !  And  oh,  what  hopeless 
efforts  of  mediocrities  and  inferiorities,  believing  in 
themselves  as  superiorities,  and  stumbling  on  through 
limping  disappointments  to  prostrate  failure  !  Pov- 
erty comes  pleading,  not  for  charity,  for  the  most  part, 
but  imploring  us  to  find  a  purchaser  for  its  unmarket- 
able wares.  The  unreadable  author  particularly  re- 
quests us  to  make  a  critical  examination  of  his  book, 


138  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

and  report  to  him  whatever  may  be  our  verdict,  —  as 
if  he  wanted  anything  but  our  praise,  and  that  very 
often  to  be  used  in  his  publisher's  advertisements. 

But  what  does  not  one  have  to  submit  to  who  has 
become  the  martyr  —  the  Saint  Sebastian  —  of  a  liter- 
ary correspondence !  I  will  not  dwell  on  the  possible 
impression  produced  on  a  sensitive  nature  by  reading 
one's  own  premature  obituary,  as  I  have  told  you  has 
been  my  recent  experience.  I  will  not  stop  to  think 
whether  the  urgent  request  for  an  autograph  by  return 
post,  in  view  of  the  possible  contingencies  which  might 
render  it  the  last  one  was  ever  to  write,  is  pleasing  or 
not.  At  threescore  and  twenty  one  must  expect  such 
hints  of  what  is  like  to  happen  before  long.  I  sup- 
pose, if  some  near  friend  were  to  watch  one  who  was 
looking  over  such  a  pressing  letter,  he  might  possibly 
see  a  slight  shadow  flit  over  the  reader's  features,  and 
some  such  dialogue  might  follow  as  that  between 
Othello  and  lago,  after  "  this  honest  creature  "  has 
been  giving  breath  to  his  suspicions  about  Desde- 
mona :  — 

"  I  see  this  hath  a  little  dash'd  your  spirits. 

"  Not  a  jot,  not  a  jot. 

"  My  lord,  I  see  you  're  moved." 

And  a  little  later  the  reader  might,  like  Othello,  com- 
plain, — 

"  I  have  a  pain  upon  my  forehead  here." 
Nothing  more  likely.     But,  for  myself,  I  have  grown 
callous  to  all  such  allusions.     The  repetition  of  the 
Scriptural  phrase  for  the  natural  term  of  life  is  so  fre- 
quent that  it  wears  out  one's  sensibilities. 

But  how  many  charming  and  refreshing  letters  I 
have  received  !  How  often  I  have  felt  their  encour- 


OVER  THE  TEA.CUP8.  189 

agement  in  moments  of  doubt  and  depression,  such  as 
the  happiest  temperaments  must  sometimes  experience ! 
If  the  time  comes  when  to  answer  all  my  kind  un- 
known friends,  even  by  dictation,  is  impossible,  or 
more  than  I  feel  equal  to,  I  wish  to  refer  any  of  those 
who  may  feel  disappointed  at  not  receiving  an  an- 
swer to  the  following  general  acknowledgments  :  — 

• 

I.  I  am  always  grateful  for  any  attention  which 
shows  me  that  I  am  kindly  remembered.  —  II.  Your 
pleasant  message  has  been  read  to  me,  and  has  been 
thankfully  listened  to.  —  III.  Your  book  (your  essay) 
(your  poem)  has  reached  me  safely,  and  has  received 
all  the  respectful  attention  to  which  it  seemed  entitled. 
It  would  take  more  than  all  the  time  I  have  at  my 
disposal  to  read  all  the  printed  matter  and  all  the 
manuscripts  which  are  sent  to  me,  and  you  would  not 
ask  me  to  attempt  the  impossible.  You  will  not, 
therefore,  expect  me  to  express  a  critical  opinion  of 
your  work.  —  IV.  I  am  deeply  sensible  to  your  ex- 
pressions of  personal  attachment  to  me  as  the  author 
of  certain  writings  which  have  brought  me  very  near 
to  you,  in  virtue  of  some  affinity  in  our  ways  of 
thought  and  moods  of  feeling.  Although  I  cannot 
keep  up  correspondences  with  many  of  my  readers 
who  seem  to  be  thoroughly  congenial  with  myself,  let 
them  be  assured  that  their  letters  have  been  read  or 
heard  with  peculiar  gratification,  and  are  preserved  as 
precious  treasures. 

I  trust  that  after  this  notice  no  correspondent  will 
be  surprised  to  find  his  or  her  letter  thus  answered  by 
anticipation  ;  and  that  if  one  of  the  above  formulae  is 
the  only  answer  he  receives,  the  unknown  friend  will 


140  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

remember  that  he  or  she  is  one  of  a  great  many  whose 
incessant  demands  have  entirely  outrun  my  power  of 
answering  them  as  fully  as  the  applicants  might  wish 
and  perhaps  expect. 

I  could  make  a  very  interesting  volume  of  the  let- 
ters I  have  received  from  correspondents  unknown  to 
the  world  of  authorship,  but  writing  from  an  instinc- 
tive impulse,  which  many  of  them  say  they  have  long 
felt  and  resisted.  One  must  not  allow  himself  to  be 
flattered  into  an  overestimate  of  his  powers  because  he 
gets  many  letters  expressing  a  peculiar  attraction  to- 
wards his  books,  and  a  preference  of  them  to  those 
with  which  he  would  not  have  dared  to  compare  his 
own.  Still,  if  the  homo  unius  libri  —  the  man  of  one 
book  —  choose  to  select  one  of  our  own  writing  as  his 
favorite  volume,  it  means  something,  —  not  much,  per- 
haps ;  but  if  one  has  unlocked  the  door  to  the  secret 
entrance  of  one  heart,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  his  key 
may  fit  the  locks  of  others.  What  if  nature  has  lent 
him  a  master  key  ?  He  has  found  the  wards  and  slid 
back  the  bolt  of  one  lock;  perhaps  he  may  have 
learned  the  secret  of  others.  One  success  is  an  en- 
couragement to  try  again.  Let  the  writer  of  a  truly 
loving  letter,  such  as  greets  one  from  time  to  time, 
remember  that,  though  he  never  hears  a  word  from  it, 
it  may  prove  one  of  the  best  rewards  of  an  anxious 
and  laborious  past,  and  the  stimulus  of  a  still  aspiring 
future. 

Among  the  letters  I  have  recently  received,  none  is 
more  interesting  than  the  following.  The  story  of 
Helen  Keller,  who  wrote  it,  is  told  in  the  well-known 
illustrated  magazine  called  "  The  Wide  Awake,"  in 
the  number  for  July,  1888.  For  the  account  of  this 
little  girl,  now  between  nine  and  ten  years  old,  and 


OVER   THE  TEACUPS.  141 

other  letters  of  her  writing,  I  must  refer  to  the  article 
I  have  mentioned.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  she  is 
deaf  and  dumb  and  totally  blind.  She  was  seven 
years  old  when  her  teacher,  Miss  Sullivan,  under  the 
direction  of  Mr.  Anagnos,  at  the  Blind  Asylum  at 
South  Boston,  began  her  education.  A  child  fuller 
of  life  and  happiness  it  would  be  hard  to  find.  It 
seems  as  if  her  soul  was  flooded  with  light  and 
filled  with  music  that  had  found  entrance  to  it  through 
avenues  closed  to  other  mortals.  It  is  hard  to  under- 
stand how  she  has  learned  to  deal  with  abstract  ideas, 
and  so  far  to  supplement  the  blanks  left  by  the  senses 
of  sight  and  hearing  that  one  would  hardly  think  of 
her  as  wanting  in  any  human  faculty.  Remember 
Milton's  pathetic  picture  of  himself,  suffering  from 
only  one  of  poor  little  Helen's  deprivations  :  — 

"  Not  to  me  returns 

Day,  or  the  sweet  approach  of  even  or  morn, 
Or  sight  of  vernal  bloom,  or  summer's  rose, 
Or  flocks,  or  herds,  or  human  face  divine  ; 
But  cloud  instead,  and  ever-during  dark 
Surrounds  me,  from  the  cheerful  ways  of  men 
Cut  off,  and  for  the  book  of  knowledge  fair 
Presented  with  a  universal  blank 
Of  Nature's  works,  to  me  expunged  and  rased, 
And  wisdom  at  one  entrance  quite  shut  out." 

Surely  for  this  loving  and  lovely  child  does 

"  the  celestial  Light 
Shine  inward." 

Anthropologist,  metaphysician,  most  of  all  theologian, 
here  is  a  lesson  which  can  teach  you  much  that  you 
will  not  find  in  your  primers  and  catechisms.  Why 
should  I  call  her  "  poor  little  Helen  "  ?  Where  can 
you  find  a  happier  child  ? 


142  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

SOUTH  BOSTON,  MASS.,  March  1,  1890. 
DEAR  KIND  POET,  —  I  have  thought  of  you  many 
times  since  that  bright  Sunday  when  I  bade  you  good- 
bye, and  I  am  going  to  write  you  a  letter  because  I 
love  you.  I  am  sorry  that  you  have  no  little  children 
to  play  with  sometimes,  but  I  think  you  are  very 
happy  with  your  books,  and  your  many,  many  friends. 
On  Washington's  Birthday  a  great  many  people  came 
here  to  see  the  little  blind  children,  and  I  read  for 
them  from  your  poems,  and  showed  them  some  beauti- 
ful shells  which  came  from  a  little  island  near  Palos. 
I  am  reading  a  very  sad  story  called  "  Little  Jakey." 
Jakey  was  the  sweetest  little  fellow  you  can  imagine, 
but  he  was  poor  and  blind.  I  used  to  think,  when  I 
was  small  and  before  I  could  read,  that  everybody  was 
always  happy,  and  at  first  it  made  me  very  sad  to 
know  about  pain  and  great  sorrow ;  but  now  I  know 
that  we  could  never  learn  to  be  brave  and  patient,  if 
there  were  only  joy  in  the  world.  I  am  studying 
about  insects  in  Zoology,  and  I  have  learned  many 
things  about  butterflies.  They  do  not  make  honey  for 
us,  like  the  bees,  but  many  of  them  are  as  beautiful 
as  the  flowers  they  light  upon,  and  they  always  delight 
the  hearts  of  little  children.  They  live  a  gay  life, 
flitting  from  flower  to  flower,  sipping  the  drops  of 
honey-dew,  without  a  thought  for  the  morrow.  They 
are  just  like  little  boys  and  girls  when  they  forget 
books  and  studies,  and  run  away  to  the  woods  and  the 
fields  to  gather  wild-flowers,  or  wade  in  the  ponds  for 
fragrant  lilies,  happy  in  the  bright  sunshine.  If  my 
little  sister  comes  to  Boston  next  June,  will  you  let  me 
bring  her  to  see  you  ?  She  is  a  lovely  baby  and  I  am 
sure  you  will  love  [her].  Now  I  must  tell  my  gentle 


OVER   THE   TEACUPS.  143 

poet  good-bye,  for  I  have  a  letter  to  write  home  before 
I  go  to  bed.     From  your  loving  little  friend, 

HELEN  A.  KELLER. 

The  reading  of  this  letter  made  many  eyes  glisten, 
and  a  dead  silence  hushed  the  whole  circle.  All  at 
once  Delilah,  our  pretty  table-maid,  forgot  her  place, 
—  what  business  had  she  to  be  listening  to  our  conver- 
sation and  reading  ?  —  and  began  sobbing,  just  as  if 
she  had  been  a  lady.  She  could  n't  help  it,  she  ex- 
plained afterwards,  —  she  had  a  little  blind  sister  at 
the  asylum,  who  had  told  her  about  Helen's  reading 
to  the  children. 

It  was  very  awkward,  this  breaking-down  of  our 
pretty  Delilah,  for  one  girl  crying  will  sometimes  set 
off  a  whole  row  of  others,  —  it  is  as  hazardous  as 
lighting  one  cracker  in  a  bunch.  The  two  Annexes 
hurried  out  their  pocket-handkerchiefs,  and  I  almost 
expected  a  semi-hysteric  cataclysm.  At  this  critical 
moment  Number  Five  called  Delilah  to  her,  looked 
into  her  face  with  those  calm  eyes  of  hers,  and  spoke 
a  few  soft  words.  Was  Number  Five  forgetful,  too  ? 
Did  she  not  remember  the  difference  of  their  posi- 
tion ?  I  suppose  so.  But  she  quieted  the  poor  hand- 
maiden as  simply  and  easily  as  a  nursing  mother 
quiets  her  un  weaned  baby.  Why  are  we  not  all  in 
love  with  Number  Five  ?  Perhaps  we  are.  At  any 
rate,  I  suspect  the  Professor.  When  we  all  get  quiet, 
I  will  touch  him  up  about  that  visit  she  promised  to 
make  to  his  laboratory. 

l 

I  got  a  chance  at  last  to  speak  privately  with  him. 
"  Did  Number  Five  go  to  meet  you  in  your  labora- 
tory, as  she  talked  of  doing  ?  '' 


144  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

"  Oh,  yes,  of  course  she  did,  —  why,  she  said  she 
would ! " 

"  Oh,  to  be  sure.  Do  tell  me  what  she  wanted  in 
your  laboratory." 

"  She  wanted  me  to  burn  a  diamond  for  her." 

"  Burn  a  diamond !  What  was  that  for  ?  Be- 
2ause  Cleopatra  swallowed  a  pearl  ?  " 

"  No,  nothing  of  that  kind.  It  was  a  small  stone, 
and  had  a  flaw  in  it.  Number  Five  said  she  did  n't 
want  a  diamond  with  a  flaw  in  it,  and  that  she  did 
want  to  see  how  a  diamond  would  burn." 

"  Was  that  all  that  happened  ?  " 

"  That  was  all.  She  brought  the  two  Annexes  with 
her,  and  I  gave  my  three  visitors  a  lecture  on  carbon, 
which  they  seemed  to  enjoy  very  much." 

I  looked  steadily  in  the  Professor's  face  during  the 
reading  of  the  following  poem.  I  saw  no  questionable 
look  upon  it,  —  but  he  has  a  remarkable  command  of 
his  features.  Number  Five  read  it  with  a  certain 
archness  of  expression,  as  if  she  saw  all  its  meaning, 
which  I  think  some  of  the  company  did  not  quite 
take  in.  They  said  they  must  read  it  slowly  and  care- 
fully. Somehow,  "  I  like  you  "  and  "  I  love  you  " 
got  a  little  mixed,  as  they  heard  it.  It  was  not  Num- 
ber Five's  fault,  for  she  read  it  beautifully,  as  we  all 
agreed,  and  as  I  knew  she  would  when  I  handed  it  to 
her. 

I  LIKE  YOU  AND  I  LOVE  YOU. 

I  LIKE  YOU  met  I  LOVE  YOU,  face  to  face  ; 

The  path  was  narrow,  and  they  could  not  pass. 

I  LIKE  YOU  smiled  ;  I  LOVE  YOU  cried,  Alas  ! 
And  so  they  halted  for  a  little  space. 


OVER   THE   TEACUPS.  145 

'  Turn  thou  and  go  before,"  I  LOVE  YOU  said, 

"  Down  the  green  pathway,  bright  with  many  a  flower  ; 
-Deep  in  the  valley,  lo  !  my  bridal  bower 
Awaits  thee."     But  I  LIKE  YOU  shook  his  head. 

Then  while  they  lingered  on  the  span-wide  shelf 
That  shaped  a  pathway  round  the  rocky  ledge, 
I  LIKE  YOU  bared  his  icy  dagger's  edge, 

And  first  he  slew  I  LOVE  YOU,  —  then  himself. 


vn. 

THEKE  is  no  use  in  burdening  my  table  with  those 
letters  of  inquiry  as  to  where  our  meetings  are  held, 
and  what  are  the  names  of  the  persons  designated  by 
numbers,  or  spoken  of  under  the  titles  of  the  Profes- 
sor, the  Tutor,  and  so  forth.  It  is  enough  that  you 
are  aware  who  I  am,  and  that  I  am  known  at  the 
tea-table  as  The  Dictator.  Theatrical  "  asides "  are 
apt  to  be  whispered  in  a  pretty  loud  voice,  and  the 
persons  who  ought  not  to  have  any  idea  of  what  is  said 
are  expected  to  be  reasonably  hard  of  hearing.  If  I 
named  all  The  Teacups,  some  of  them  might  be  of- 
fended. If  any  of  my  readers  happen  to  be  able  to 
identify  any  one  Teacup  by  some  accidental  circum- 
stance, —  say,  for  instance,  Number  Five,  by  the  in- 
cident of  her  burning  the  diamond,  —  I  hope  they 
will  keep  quiet  about  it.  Number  Five  does  n't  want 
to  be  pointed  out  in  the  street  as  the  extravagant  per- 
son who  makes  use  of  such  expensive  fuel,  for  the 
story  would  soon  grow  to  a  statement  that  she  always 
uses  diamonds,  instead  of  cheaper  forms  of  carbon,  to 
heat  her  coffee  with.  So  with  other  members  of  the 
circle.  The  "  cracked  Teacup,"  Number  Seven,  would 
not,  perhaps,  be  pleased  to  recognize  himself  under 
that  title.  I  repeat  it,  therefore,  Do  not  try  to  iden- 
tify the  individual  Teacups.  You  will  not  get  them 
right ;  or,  if  you  do,  you  may  too  probably  make 
trouble.  How  is  it  possible  that  I  can  keep  up  my 


OVER   THE  TEACUPS.  147 

freedom  of  intercourse  with  you  all  if  you  insist  on 
bellowing  my  "  asides  "  through  a  speaking-trumpet  ? 
Besides,  you  cannot  have  failed  to  see  that  there  are 
strong  symptoms  of  the  springing  up  of  delicate  rela- 
tions between  some  of  our  number.  I  told  you  how 
it  would  be.  It  did  not  require  a  prophet  to  foresee 
that  the  saucy  intruder  who,  as  Mr.  Willis  wrote,  and 
the  dear  dead  girls  used  to  sing,  in  our  young  days, 

"  Taketh  every  form  of  air, 
And  every  shape  of  earth, 
And  comes  unbidden  everywhere, 
Like  thought's  mysterious  birth," 

would  pop  his  little  curly  head  up  between  one  or 
more  pairs  of  Teacups.  If  you  will  stop  these  ques- 
tions, then,  I  will  go  on  with  my  reports  of  what  was 
said  and  done  at  our  meetings  over  the  teacups. 

Of  all  things  beautiful  in  this  fair  world,  there  is 
nothing  so  enchanting  to  look  upon,  to  dream  about, 
as  the  first  opening  of  the  flower  of  young  love.  How 
closely  the  calyx  has  hidden  the  glowing  leaves  in  its 
quiet  green  mantle  !  Side  by  side,  two  buds  have  been 
tossing  jauntily  in  the  breeze,  often  brought  very  near 
to  each  other,  sometimes  touching  for  a  moment,  with 
a  secret  thrill  in  their  close-folded  heart-leaves,  it  may 
be,  but  still  the  cool  green  sepals  shutting  tight  over 
the  burning  secret  within.  All  at  once  a  morning  ray 
touches  one  of  the  two  buds,  and  the  point  of  a  blush- 
ing petal  betrays  the  imprisoned  and  swelling  blos- 
som. 

—  Oh,  no,  I  did  not  promise  a  love-story.  There 
may  be  a  little  sentiment  now  and  then,  but  these  pa- 
pers are  devoted  chiefly  to  the  opinions,  prejudices, 
fancies,  whims,  of  myself,  The  Dictator,  and  others 
of  The  Teacups  who  have  talked  or  written  for  the 
general  benefit  of  the  company. 


148  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

Here  are  some  of  the  remarks  I  made  the  other 
evenjng  on  the  subject  of  Intellectual  Over-Feeding 
and  its  consequence,  Mental  Dyspepsia. 

There  is  something  positively  appalling  in  the 
amount  of  printed  matter  yearly,  monthly,  weekly, 
daily,  secreted  by  that  great  gland  of  the  civilized  or- 
ganism, the  press.  I  need  not  dilate  upon  this  point, 
for  it  is  brought  home  to  every  one  of  you  who  ever 
looks  into  a  bookstore  or  a  public  library.  So  large 
is  the  variety  of  literary  products  continually  coming 
forward,  forced  upon  the  attention  of  the  reader  by 
stimulating  and  suggestive  titles,  commended  to  his 
notice  by  famous  names,  recasting  old  subjects  and 
developing  and  illustrating  new  ones,  that  the  mind  is 
liable  to  be  urged  into  a  kind  of  unnatural  hunger, 
leading  to  a  repletion  which  is  often  followed  by  dis- 
gust and  disturbed  nervous  conditions  as  its  natural 
consequence. 

It  has  long  been  a  favorite  rule  with  me,  a  rule 
which  I  have  never  lost  sight  of,  however  imperfectly 
I  have  carried  it  out :  Try  to  know  enough  of  a  wide 
range  of  subjects  to  profit  by  the  conversation  of 
intelligent  persons  of  different  callings  and  various 
intellectual  gifts  and  acquisitions.  The  cynic  will 
paraphrase  this  into  a  shorter  formula :  Get  a  smatter- 
ing in  every  sort  of  knowledge.  I  must  therefore  add 
a  second  piece  of  advice :  Learn  to  hold  as  of  small 
account  the  comments  of  the  cynic.  He  is  often 
amusing,  sometimes  really  witty,  occasionally,  without 
meaning  it,  instructive ;  but  his  talk  is  to  profitable 
conversation  what  the  stone  is  to  the  pulp  of  the 
peach,  what  the  cob  is  to  the  kernels  on  an  ear  of 
Indian  corn.  Once  more :  Do  not  be  bullied  out  of 
your  common  sense  by  the  specialist ;  two  to  one,  he 


OVER   THE   TEACUPS.  149 

is  a  pedant,  with  all  his  knowledge  and  valuable  qual- 
ities, and  will  "  cavil  on  the  ninth  part  of  a  hair,"  if 
it  will  give  him  a  chance  to  show  off  his  idle  erudition. 

I  saw  attributed  to  me,  the  other  day,  the  saying, 
"Know  something  about  everything,  and  everything 
about  something."  I  am  afraid  it  does  not  belong  to 
"me,  but  I  will  treat  it  as  I  used  to  treat  a  stray  boat 
which  came  through  my  meadow,  floating  down  the 
Housatonic,  —  get  hold  of  it  and  draw  it  ashore,  and 
hold  on  to  it  until  the  owner  turns  up.  If  this  precept 
is  used  discreetly,  it  is  very  serviceable ;  but  it  is  as 
well  to  recognize  the  fact  that  you  cannot  know  some- 
thing about  everything  in  days  like  these  of  intellec- 
tual activity,  of  literary  and  scientific  production.  We 
all  feel  this.  It  makes  us  nervous  to  see  the  shelves 
of  new  books,  many  of  which  we  feel  as  if  we  ought  to 
read,  and  some  among  them  to  study.  We  must  adopt 
some  principle  of  selection  among  the  books  outside  of 
any  particular  branch  which  we  may  have  selected  for 
study.  I  have  often  been  asked  what  books  I  would 
recommend  for  a  course  of  reading.  I  have  always 
answered  that  I  had  a  great  deal  rather  take  advice 
than  give  it.  Fortunately,  a  number  of  scholars  have 
furnished  lists  of  books  to  which  the  inquirer  may  be 
directed.  But  the  worst  of  it  is  that  each  student  is 
in  need  of  a  little  library  specially  adapted  to  his 
wants.  Here  is  a  young  man  writing  to  me  from  a 
Western  college,  and  wants  me  to  send  him  a  list  of 
the  books  7/hich  I  think  would  be  most  useful  to  him. 
He  does  not  send  me  his  intellectual  measurements  ; 
and  he  might  as  well  have  sent  to  a  Boston  tailor  for 
a  coat,  without  any  hint  of  his  dimensions  in  length, 
breadth,  and  thickness. 

But  instead  of  laying  down  rules  for  reading,  and 


150  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

furnishing  lists  of  the  books  which  should  be  read  in 
order,  I  will  undertake  the  much  humbler  task  of  giv- 
ing a  little  quasi-medical  advice  to  persons,  young  or 
old,  suffering  from  book-hunger,  book-surfeit,  book- 
nervousness,  book-indigestion,  book-nausea,  and  all 
other  maladies  which,  directly  or  indirectly,  may  be 
traced  to  books,  and  to  which  I  could  give  Greek  or 
Latin  names  if  I  thought  it  worth  while. 

I  have  a  picture  hanging  in  my  library,  a  lithograph, 
of  which  many  of  my  readers  may  have  seen  copies. 
It  represents  a  gray-haired  old  book-lover  at  the  top 
of  a  long  flight  of  steps.  He  finds  himself  in  clover, 
so  to  speak,  among  rare  old  editions,  books  he  has 
longed  to  look  upon  and  never  seen  before,  rarities, 
precious  old  volumes,  incunabula,  cradle-books,  printed 
while  the  art  was  in  its  infancy,  —  its  glorious  infancy, 
for  it  was  born  a  giant.  The  old  bookworm  is  so  in- 
toxicated with  the  sight  and  handling  of  the  price- 
less treasures  that  he  cannot  bear  to  put  one  of  the 
volumes  back  after  he  has  taken  it  from  the  shelf. 
So  there  he  stands,  —  one  book  open  in  his  hands, 
a  volume  under  each  arm,  and  one  or  more  between 
his  legs,  —  loaded  with  as  many  as  he  can  possibly 
hjld  at  the  same  time. 

Now,  that  is  just  the  way  in  which  the  extreme  form 
of  book-hunger  shows  itself  in  the  reader  whose  appe- 
tite has  become  over-developed.  He  wants  to  read  so 
many  books  that  he  over-crams  himself  with  the  crude 
materials  of  knowledge,  which  become  knowledge  only 
when  the  mental  digestion  has  time  to  assimilate 
them.  I  never  can  go  into  that  famous  "  Corner  Book- 
store "  and  look  over  the  new  books  in  the  row  before 
me,  as  I  enter  the  door,  without  seeing  half  a  dozen 
which  I  want  to  read,  or  at  least  to  know  something 


OVER  THE   TEACUPS.  151 

about.  I  cannot  empty  my  purse  of  its  contents,  and 
crowd  my  bookshelves  with  all  those  volumes.  The 
titles  of  many  of  them  interest  me.  I  look  into  one 
or  two,  perhaps.  I  have  sometimes  picked  up  a  line 
or  a  sentence,  in  these  momentary  glances  between  the 
uncut  leaves  of  a  new  book,  which  I  have  never  for- 
gotten. As  a  trivial  but  bona  fide  example,  one  day 
I  opened  a  book  on  duelling.  I  remember  only  these 
words:  " Conservons-la,  cette  noble  institution."  I 
had  never  before  seen  duelling  called  a  noble  institu- 
tion, and  I  wish  I  had  taken  the  name  of  the  book. 
Hook-tasting  is  not  necessarily  profitless,  but  it  is  very 
stimulating,  and  makes  one  hungry  for  more  than  he 
needs  for  the  nourishment  of  his  thinking-marrow. 
To  feed  this  insatiable  hunger,  the  abstracts,  the  re- 
views, do  their  best.  But  these,  again,  have  grown  so 
numerous  and  so  crowded  with  matter  that  it  is  hard 
to  find  time  to  master  their  contents.  We  are  accus- 
tomed, therefore,  to  look  for  analyses  of  these  periodi- 
cals, and  at  last  we  have  placed  before  us  a  formida- 
ble-looking monthly,  "  The  Review  of  Reviews."  After 
the  analyses  comes  the  newspaper  notice ;  and  there 
is  still  room  for  the  epigram,  which  sometimes  makes 
short  work  with  all  that  has  gone  before  on  the  same 
subject. 

It  is  just  as  well  to  recognize  the  fact  that  if  one 
should  read  day  and  night,  confining  himself  to  his 
own  language,  he  could  not  pretend  to  keep  up  with 
the  press.  He  might  as  well  try  to  race  with  a  loco- 
motive. The  first  discipline,  therefore,  is  that  of  de* 
spair.  If  you  could  stick  to  your  reading  day  and 
night  for  fifty  years,  what  a  learned  idiot  you  would 
become  long  before  the  half-century  was  over  !  Well, 
then,  there  is  no  use  in  gorging  one's  self  with  know- 


152  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

ledge,  and  no  need  of  self-reproach  because  one  is  con- 
tent to  remain  more  or  less  ignorant  of  many  things 
which  interest  his  fellow-creatures.  We  gain  a  good 
deal  of  knowledge  through  the  atmosphere ;  we  learn 
a  great  deal  by  accidental  hearsay,  provided  we  have 
the  mordant  in  our  own  consciousness  which  makes 
the  wise  remark,  the  significant  fact,  the  instructive 
incident,  take  hold  upon  it.  After  the  stage  of  de- 
spair comes  the  period  of  consolation*  We  soon  find 
that  we  are  not  so  much  worse  off  than  most  of  our 
neighbors  as  we  supposed.  The  fractional  value  of 
the  wisest  shows  a  small  numerator  divided  by  an  in- 
finite denominator  of  knowledge. 

I  made  some  explanations  to  The  Teacups,  the  other 
evening,  which  they  received  very  intelligently  and 
graciously,  as  I  have  no  doubt  the  readers  of  these  re- 
ports of  mine  will  receive  them.  If  the  reader  will 
turn  back  to  the  end  of  the  fourth  number  of  these 
papers,  he  will  find  certain  lines  entitled,  "  Cacoe- 
thes  Scribendi"  They  were  said  to  have  been  taken 
from  the  usual  receptacle  of  the  verses  which  are  con- 
tributed by  The  Teacups,  and,  though  the  fact  was 
not  mentioned,  were  of  my  own  composition.  I  found 
them  in  manuscript  in  my  drawer,  and  as  my  subject 
had  naturally  suggested  the  train  of  thought  they  car- 
ried out  into  extravagance,  I  printed  them.  At  the 
same  time  they  sounded  very  natural,  as  we  say,  and 
I  felt  as  if  I  had  published  them  somewhere  or  other 
before ;  but  I  could  find  no  evidence  of  it,  and  so  I 
ventured  to  have  them  put  in  type. 

And  here  I  wish  to  take  breath  for  a  short,  separate 
paragraph.  I  have  often  felt,  after  writing  a  line 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  153 

which  pleased  me  more  than  common,  that  it  was  not 
new,  and  perhaps  was  not  my  own.  I  have  very  rarely, 
howe  /er,  found  such  a  coincidence  in  ideas  or  expres- 
sion as  would  be  enough  to  justify  an  accusation  of  un- 
conscious plagiarism,  —  conscious  plagiarism  is  not 
my  particular  failing.  I  therefore  say  my  say,  set 
down  my  thought,  print  my  line,  and  do  not  heed  the 
suspicion  that  I  may  not  be  as  original  as  I  supposed, 
in  the  passage  I  have  been  writing.  My  experience 
may  be  worth  something  to  a  modest  young  writer, 
and  so  I  have  interrupted  what  I  was  about  to  say  by 
intercalating  this  paragraph. 

In  this  instance  my  telltale  suspicion  had  not  been 
at  fault.  I  had  printed  those  same  lines,  years  ago, 
in  "  The  Contributors'  Club,"  to  which  I  have  rarely 
sent  any  of  my  prose  or  verse.  Nobody  but  the  editor 
has  noticed  the  fact,  so  far  as  I  know.  This  is  con- 
soling, or  mortifying,  I  hardly  know  which.  I  sup- 
pose one  has  a  right  to  plagiarize  from  himself,  but 
he  does  not  want  to  present  his  work  as  fresh  from 
the  workshop  when  it  has  been  long  standing  in  his 
neighbor's  shop-window. 

But  I  have  just  received  a  letter  from  a  brother  of 
the  late  Henry  Howard  Brownell,  the  poet  of  the  Bay 
Fight  and  the  River  Fight,  in  which  he  quotes  a  pas- 
sage from  an  old  book,  "  A  Heroine,  Adventures  of 
Cherubina,"  which  might  well  have  suggested  my  own 
lines,  if  I  had  ever  seen  it.  I  have  not  the  slightest 
recollection  of  the  book  or  the  passage.  I  think  its 
liveliness  and  "local  color"  will  make  it  please  the 
reader,  as  it  pleases  me,  more  than  my  own  more  pro- 
saic extravagances :  — 


154  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

LINES   TO   A   PRETTY   LITTLE   MAID  OF   MAM  MA'S. 

"  If  Black  Sea,  Red  Sea,  White  Sea,  ran 
One  tide  of  ink  to  Ispahan, 
If  all  the  geese  in  Lincoln  fens 
Produced  spontaneous  well-made  pens, 
If  Hollaud  old  and  Holland  new 
One  wondrous  sheet  of  paper  grew, 
And  could  I  sing  but  half  the  grace 
Of  half  a  freckle  in  thy  face, 
Each  syllable  I  wrote  would  reach 
From  Inverness  to  Bognor's  beach,  — — 
Each  hair-stroke  be  a  river  Rhine, 
Each  verse  an  equinoctial  line  ! ' ' 

"  The  immediate  dismissal  of  the  *  little  maid '  was 
the  consequence." 

I  may  as  well  say  that  our  Delilah  was  not  in  the 
room  when  the  last  sentence  was  read. 

Readers  must  be  either  very  good-natured  or  very 
careless.  I  have  laid  myself  open  to  criticism  by  more 
than  one  piece  of  negligence,  which  has  been  passed 
over  without  invidious  comment  by  the  readers  of  my 
papers.  How  could  I,  for  instance,  have  written  in 
my  original  "copy"  for  the  printer  about  the  fish- 
erman baiting  his  hook  with  a  giant's  tail  instead  of 
a  dragon's  ?  It  is  the  automatic  fellow,  —  Me-Num- 
ber-Two  of  our  dual  personality,  —  who  does  these 
things,  who  forgets  the  message  Me  -  Number  -  One 
sends  down  to  him  from  the  cerebral  convolutions,  and 
substitutes  a  wrong  word  for  the  right  one.  I  suppose 
Me  -  Number  -  Two  will  "  sass  back, "  and  swear  that 
"  giant's "  was  the  message  which  came  down  from 
headquarters.  He  is  always  doing  the  wrong  thing 
and  excusing  himself.  Who  blows  out  the  gas  instead 
of  shutting  it  off  ?  Who  puts  the  key  in  the  desk  and 
fastens  it  tight  with  the  spring  lock  ?  Do  you  mean 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  155 

to  say  that  the  upper  Me,  the  Me  of  the  true  thinking- 
marrow,  the  convolutions  of  the  brain,  does  not  know 
better  ?  Of  course  he  does,  and  Me  -  Number  -  Two  is 
a  careless  servant,  who  remembers  some  old  direction, 
and  follows  that  instead  of  the  one  just  given. 

Number  Seven  demurred  to  this,  and  I  am  not  sure 
that  he  is  wrong  in  so  doing.  He  maintains  that  the 
automatic  fellow  always  does  just  what  he  is  told  to 
do.  Number  Five  is  disposed  to  agree  with  him.  We 
will  talk  over  the  question. 

But  come,  now,  why  should  not  a  giant  have  a  tail 
as  well  as  a  dragon  ?  Linnaeus  admitted  the  homo 
caudatus  into  his  anthropological  catalogue.  The 
human  embryo  has  a  very  well  marked  caudal  append- 
age ;  that  is,  the  vertebral  column  appears  prolonged, 
just  as  it  is  in  a  young  quadruped.  During  the  late 
session  of  the  Medical  Congress  at  Washington,  my 
friend  Dr.  Priestley,  a  distinguished  London  physician, 
of  the  highest  character  and  standing,  showed  me  the 
photograph  of  a  small  boy,  some  three  or  four  years 
old,  who  had  a  very  respectable  little  tail,  which  would 
have  passed  muster  on  a  pig,  and  would  have  made 
a  frog  or  a  toad  ashamed  of  himself.  I  have  never 
heard  what  became  of  the  little  boy,  nor  have  I  looked 
in  the  books  or  journals  to  find  out  if  there  are  similar 
cases  on  record,  but  I  have  no  doubt  that  there  are 
others.  And  if  boys  may  have  this  additional  orna- 
ment to  their  vertebral  columns,  why  not  men  ?  And 
if  men,  why  not  giants  ?  So  I  may  not  have  made  a 
very  bad  blunder,  after  all,  and  my  reader  has  learned 
something  about  the  homo  caudatus  as  spoken  of  by 
Linnzeus,  and  as  shown  me  in  photograph  by  Dr. 
Priestley.  This  child  is  a  candidate  for  the  vacant 
place  of  Missing  Link. 


156  OVER   THE  TEACUPS. 

In  accounting  for  the  blunders,  and  even  gross 
blunders,  which,  sooner  or  later,  one  who  writes  much 
is  pretty  sure  to  commit,  I  must  not  forget  the  part 
played  by  the  blind  spot  or  idiotic  area  in  the  brain, 
which  I  have  already  described. 

The  most  knowing  persons  we  meet  with  are  some- 
times at  fault.  Non  omnia  jwssumus  omnes  is  not  a 
new  nor  profound  axiom,  but  it  is  well  to  remember  it 
as  a  counterpoise  to  that  other  truly  American  saying 
of  the  late  Mr.  Samuel  Patch,  "  Some  things  can  be 
done  as  well  as  others."  Yes,  some  things,  but  not  all 
things.  We  all  know  men  and  women  who  hate  to 
admit  their  ignorance  of  anything.  Like  Talkative  in 
"  Pilgrim's  Progress, "  they  are  ready  to  converse  of 
"  things  heavenly  or  things  earthly  ;  things  moral  or 
things  evangelical ;  things  sacred  or  things  profane ; 
things  past  or  things  to  come  ;  things  foreign  or  things 
at  home ;  things  more  essential  or  things  circumstan- 
tial." 

Talkative  is  apt  to  be  a  shallow  fellow,  and  to  say 
foolish  things  about  matters  he  only  half  understands, 
and  yet  he  has  his  place  in  society.  The  specialists 
would  grow  to  be  intolerable,  were  they  not  counter- 
poised to  some  degree  by  the  people  of  general  intelli- 
gence. The  man  who  knows  too  much  about  one 
particular  subject  is  liable  to  become  a  terrible  social 
infliction.  Some  of  the  worst  bores  (to  use  plain 
language)  we  ever  meet  with  are  recognized  as  ex- 
perts of  high  grade  in  their  respective  departments. 
Beware  of  making  so  much  as  a  pinhole  in  the  dam 
that  holds  back  their  knowledge.  They  ride  their 
hobbies  without  bit  or  bridle.  A  poet  on  Pegasus, 
reciting  his  own  verses,  is  hardly  more  to  be  dreaded 
than  a  mounted  specialist. 


OVER    THE  TEACUPS.  157 

One  of  the  best  offices  which  women  perform  for 
men  is  that  of  tasting  books  for  them.  They  may  or 
may  "not  be  profound  students,  —  some  of  them  are  j 
but  we  do  not  expect  to  meet  women  like  Mrs.  Somer- 
ville,  or  Caroline  Herschel,  or  Maria  Mitchell  at  every 
dinner -table  or  afternoon  tea.  But  give  your  elect 
lady  a  pile  of  books  to  look  over  for  you,  and  she  will 
tell  you  what  they  have  for  her  and  for  you  in  less 
time  than  you  would  have  wasted  in  stupefying  your- 
self over  a  single  volume. 

One  of  the  encouraging  signs  of  the  times  is  the 
condensed  and  abbreviated  form  in  which  knowledge 
is  presented  to  the  general  reader.  The  short  biog- 
raphies of  historic  personages,  of  which  within  the 
past  few  years  many  have  been  published,  have  been 
a  great  relief  to  the  large  class  of  readers  who  want 
to  know  something,  but  not  too  much,  about  them. 

What  refuge  is  there  for  the  victim  who  is  oppressed 
with  the  feeling  that  there  are  a  thousand  new  books 
he  ought  to  read,  while  life  is  only  long  enough  for 
him  to  attempt  to  read  a  hundred? 

Many  readers  remember  what  old  Rogers,  the  poet, 
said :  "  When  I  hear  a  new  book  talked  about  or  have 
it  pressed  upon  me,  I  read  an  old  one."  Happy  the 
man  who  finds  his  rest  in  the  pages  of  some  favorite 
classic!  I  know  no  reader  more  to  be  envied  than 
that  friend  of  mine  who  for  many  years  has  given  his 
days  and  nights  to  the  loving  study  of  Horace.  After 
a  certain  period  in  life,  it  is  always  with  an  effort  that 
we  admit  a  new  author  into  the  inner  circle  of  our 
intimates.  The  Parisian  omnibuses,  as  I  remember 
them  half  a  century  ago,  —  they  may  still  keep  to  the 
same  habit,  for  aught  that  I  know,  —  used  to  put  up 
the  sign  "  Complet "  as  soon  as  they  were  full.  Our 


158  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

public  conveyances  are  never  full  until  the  natural 
atmospheric  pressure  of  sixteen  pounds  to  the  square 
inch  is  doubled,  in  the  close  packing  of  the  human 
sardines  that  fill  the  all-accommodating  vehicles.  A 
new-comer,  however  well  mannered  and  well  dressed, 
is  not  very  welcome  under  these  circumstances.  In 
the  same  way,  our  tables  are  full  of  books  half  read 
and  books  we  feel  that  we  must  read.  And  here  come 
in  two  thick  volumes,  with  uncut  leaves,  in  small  type, 
,  with  many  pages,  and  many  lines  to  a  page,  —  a  book 
that  must  be  read  and  ought  to  be  read  at  once.  What 
a  relief  to  hand  it  over  to  the  lovely  keeper  of  your 
literary  conscience,  who  will  tell  you  all  that  you  will 
most  care  to  know  about  it,  and  leave  you  free  to 
plunge  into  your  beloved  volume,  in  which  you  are 
ever  finding  new  beauties,  and  from  which  you  rise 
refreshed,  as  if  you  had  just  come  from  the  cool  waters 
of  Hippocrene !  The  stream  of  modern  literature  rep- 
resented by  the  books  and  periodicals  on  the  crowded 
counters  is  a  turbulent  and  clamorous  torrent,  dashing 
along  among  the  rocks  of  criticism,  over  the  pebbles 
of  the  world's  daily  events ;  trying  to  make  itself  seen 
and  heard  amidst  the  hoarse  cries  of  the  politicians  and 
the  rumbling  wheels  of  traffic.  The  classic  is  a  still 
lakelet,  a  mountain  tarn,  fed  by  springs  that  never 
fail,  its  surface  never  ruffled  by  storms,  —  always  the 
same,  always  smiling  a  welcome  to  its  visitor.  Such 
is  Horace  to  my  friend.  To  his  eye  "  Lydia,  die  per 
omnes  "  is  as  familiar  as  "  Pater  noster  qui  es  in 
ctjdis  "  to  that  of  a  pious  Catholic.  "  Integer  vitce" 
which  he  has  put  into  manly  English,  his  Horace 
opens  to  as  Watt's  hymn-book  opens  to  "  From  all 
that  dwell  below  the  skies."  The  more  he  reads,  the 
more  he  studies  his  author,  the  richer  are  the  treasures 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  159 

he  finds.  And  what  Horace  is  to  him,  Homer,  or 
Virgil,  or  Dante  is  to  many  a  quiet  reader,  sick  to 
death  of  the  unending  train  of  bookmakers. 

I  have  some  curious  books  in  my  library,  a  few  of 
which  I  should  like  to  say  something  about  to  The 
Teacups,  when  they  have  no  more  immediately  press- 
ing subjects  before  them.  A  library  of  a  few  thou 
sand  volumes  ought  always  to  have  some  books  in  it 
which  the  owner  almost  never  opens,  yet  with  whose 
backs  he  is  so  well  acquainted  that  he  feels  as  if  he 
knew  something  of  their  contents.  They  are  like 
those  persons  whom  we  meet  in  our  daily  walks,  with 
whose  faces  and  figures,  whose  summer  and  winter 
garments,  whose  walking-sticks  and  umbrellas  even, 
we  feel  acquainted,  and  yet  whose  names,  whose  busi- 
ness, whose  residences,  we  know  nothing  about.  Some 
of  these  books  are  so  formidable  in  their  dimensions, 
so  rusty  and  crabbed  in  their  aspect,  that  it  takes  a 
considerable  amount  of  courage  to  attack  them. 

I  will  ask  Delilah  to  bring  down  from  my  library  a 
very  thick,  stout  volume,  bound  in  parchment,  and 
standing  on  the  lower  shelf,  next  the  fireplace.  The 
pretty  handmaid  knows  my  books  almost  as  if  she 
were  my  librarian,  and  I  don't  doubt  she  would  have 
found  it  if  I  had  given  only  the  name  on  the  back. 

Delilah  returned  presently,  with  the  heavy  quarto 
in  her  arms.  It  was  a  pleasing  sight,  —  the  old  book 
in  the  embrace  of  the  fresh  young  damsel.  I  felt,  on 
looking  at  them,  as  I  did  when  I  followed  the  slip  of 
a  girl  who  conducted  us  in  the  Temple,  that  ancient 
building  in  the  heart  of  London.  The  long-enduring 
monuments  of  the  dead  do  so  mock  the  fleeting  pres- 
ence of  the  living ! 

Is  n't  this  book  enough  to  scare  any  of  you  ?  I  said, 


160  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

as  Delilah  dumped  it  down  upon  the  table.  The 
teacups  jumped  from  their  saucers  as  it  thumped  on 
the  board.  Danielis  Georgii  Morhofii  Polyhistor, 
Literarius,  PMlosophicus  et  JPoeticus.  Lubecoe, 
MDCCXXXIIL  Perhaps  I  should  not  have  ven- 
tured to  ask  you  to  look  at  this  old  volume,  if  it  had 
not  been  for  the  fact  that  Dr.  Johnson  mentions  Mor- 
hof  as  the  author  to  whom  he  was  specially  indebted, 
—  more,  I  think,  than  to  any  other.  It  is  a  grand 
old  encyclopaedic  summary  of  all  the  author  knew 
about  pretty  nearly  everything,  full  of  curious  inter- 
est, but  so  strangely  mediaeval,  so  utterly  antiquated 
in  most  departments  of  knowledge,  that  it  is  hard  to 
believe  the  volume  came  from  the  press  at  a  time 
when  persons  whom  I  well  remember  were  living.  Is 
it  possible  that  the  books  which  have  been  for  me 
what  Morhof  was  for  Dr.  Johnson  can  look  like  that 
to  the  student  of  the  year  1990? 

Morhof  was  a  believer  in  magic  and  the  transmuta- 
tion of  metals.  There  was  always  something  fascinat- 
ing to  me  in  the  old  books  of  alchemy.  I  have  felt 
that  the  poetry  of  science  lost  its  wings  when  the  last 
powder  of  projection  had  been  cast  into  the  crucible, 
and  the  fire  of  the  last  transmutation  furnace  went 
out.  Perhaps  I  am  wrong  in  implying  that  alchemy 
is  an  extinct  folly.  It  existed  in  New  England's  early 
days,  as  we  learn  from  the  Winthrop  papers,  and  I  see 
no  reason  why  gold-making  should  not  have  its  votaries 
as  well  as  other  popular  delusions. 

Among  the  essays  of  Morhof  is  one  on  the  "  Para- 
doxes of  the  Senses."  That  title  brought  to  mind  the 
recollection  of  another  work  I  have  been  meaning  to 
say  something  about,  at  some  time  when  you  were  in 
the  listening  mood.  The  book  I  refer  to  is  "A 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  161 

Budget  of  Paradoxes,"  by  Augustus  De  Morgan.  De 
Morgan  is  well  remembered  as  a  very  distinguished 
mathematician,  whose  works  have  kept  his  name  in 
high  honor  to  the  present  time.  The  book  I  am 
speaking  of  was  published  by  his  widow,  and  is  largely 
made  up  of  letters  received  by  him  and  his  comments 
upon  them.  Few  persons  ever  read  it  through.  Few 
intelligent  readers  ever  took  it  up  and  laid  it  dowi 
without  taking  a  long  draught  of  its  singular  and  in- 
teresting  contents.  The  letters  are  mostly  from  that 
class  of  persons  whom  we  call  "  cranks,"  in  our  famil- 
iar language. 

At  this  point  Number  Seven  interrupted  me  by 
calling  out,  "  Give  us  some  of  those  cranks'  letters. 
A  crank  is  a  man  who  does  his  own  thinking.  I  had 
a  relation  who  was  called  a  crank.  I  believe  I  have 
been  spoken  of  as  one  myself.  That  is  what  you  have 
to  expect  if  you  invent  anything  that  puts  an  old  ma- 
chine out  of  fashion,  or  solve  a  problem  that  has  puz- 
zled all  the  world  up  to  your  time.  There  never  was 
a  religion  founded  but  its  Messiah  was  called  a  crank. 
There  never  was  an  idea  started  that  woke  up  men 
out  of  their  stupid  indifference  but  its  originator  was 
spoken  of  as  a  crank.  Do  you  want  to  know  why 
that  name  is  given  to  the  men  who  do  most  for  the 
world's  progress?  I  will  tell  you.  It  is  because 
cranks  make  all  the  wheels  in  all  the  machinery  of 
the  world  go  round.  What  would  a  steam-engine  be 
without  a  crank  ?  I  suppose  the  first  fool  that  looked 
on  the  first  crank  that  was  ever  made  asked  what  that 
crooked,  queer-looking  thing  was  good  for.  When 
the  wheels  got  moving  he  found  out.  Tell  us  some- 
thing about  that  book  which  has  so  much  to  say  con- 
cerning cranks." 


162  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

Hereupon  I  requested  Delilah  to  carry  back  Mor- 
hof,  and  replace  him  in  the  wide  gap  he  had  left  in 
the  bookshelf.  She  was  then  to  find  and  bring  down 
the  volume  I  had  been  speaking  of. 

Delilah  took  the  wisdom  of  the  seventeenth  century 
in  her  arms,  and  departed  on  her  errand.  The  book 
she  brought  down  was  given  me  some  years  ago  by 
a  gentleman  who  had  sagaciously  foreseen  that  it  was 
just  one  of  those  works  which  I  might  hesitate  about 
buying,  but  should  be  well  pleased  to  own.  He 
guessed  well ;  the  book  has  been  a  great  source  of 
instruction  and  entertainment  to  me.  I  wonder  that 
so  much  time  and  cost  should  have  been  expended 
upon  a  work  which  might  have  borne  a  title  like  the 
Encomium  Moriae  of  Erasmus ;  and  yet  it  is  such  a 
wonderful  museum  of  the  productions  of  the  squinting 
brains  belonging  to  the  class  of  persons  commonly 
known  as  cranks  that  we  could  hardly  spare  one  of 
its  five  hundred  octavo  pages. 

Those  of  us  who  are  in  the  habit  of  receiving  let- 
ters from  all  sorts  of  would-be-literary  people  —  letters 
of  inquiry,  many  of  them  with  reference  to  matters 
we  are  supposed  to  understand  —  can  readily  see  how 
it  was  that  Mr.  De  Morgan,  never  too  busy  to  be 
good-natured  with  the  people  who  pestered  —  or 
amused  —  him  with  their  queer  fancies,  received  such 
a  number  of  letters  from  persons  who  thought  they 
had  made  great  discoveries,  from  those  who  felt  that 
they  and  their  inventions  and  contrivances  had  been 
overlooked,  and  who  sought  in  his  large  charity  of 
disposition  and  great  receptiveness  a  balm  for  their 
wounded  feelings  and  a  ray  of  hope  for  their  darkened 
prospects. 

The  book  before  us  i&  made  up  from  papers  pub- 


OVER   THE  TEACUPS.  163 

lished  in  "The  Athenaeum,"  with  additions  by  the 
author.  Soon  after  opening  it  we  come  to  names  with 
which  we  are  familiar,  the  first  of  these,  that  of  Cor- 
nelius Agrippa,  being  connected  with  the  occult  and 
mystic  doctrines  dealt  with  by  many  of  De  Morgan's 
correspondents.  But  the  name  most  likely  to  arrest 
us  is  that  of  Giordano  Bruno,  the  same  philosopher, 
heretic,  and  martyr  whose  statue  has  recently  been 
erected  in  Rome,  to  the  great  horror  of  the  Pope  and 
liis  prelates  in  the  Old  World  and  in  the  New.  De 
Morgan's  pithy  account  of  him  will  interest  the  com- 
pany :  "  Giordano  Bruno  was  all  paradox.  He  was, 
as  has  been  said,  a  vorticist  before  Descartes,  an  opti- 
mist before  Leibnitz,  a  Copernican  before  Galileo.  It 
would  be  easy  to  collect  a  hundred  strange  opinions  of 
his.  He  was  born  about  1550,  and  was  roasted  alive 
at  Rome,  February  17,  1600,  for  the  maintenance  and 
defence  of  the  Holy  Church,  and  the  rights  and  liber- 
ties of  the  same." 

Number  Seven  could  not  contain  himself  when  the 
reading  had  reached  this  point.  He  rose  from  his 
chair,  and  tinkled  his  spoon  against  the  side  of  his 
teacup.  It  may  have  been  a  fancy,  but  I  thought  it 
returned  a  sound  which  Mr.  Richard  Briggs  would 
have  recognized  as  implying  an  organic  defect.  But 
Number  Seven  did  not  seem  to  notice  it,  or,  if  he  did, 
to  mind  it. 

"  Why  did  n't  we  all  have  a  chance  to  help  erect 
that  statue  ?  "  he  cried.  "  A  murdered  heretic  at  the 
beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century,  a  hero  of  know- 
ledge in  the  nineteenth,  —  I  drink  to  the  memory  of 
the  roasted  crank,  Giordano  Bruno !  " 

Number  Seven  lifted  his  teacup  to  his  lips,  and 
most  of  us  followed  his  example. 


104  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

After  this  outburst  of  emotion  and  eloquence  had 
subsided,  and  the  teaspoons  lay  quietly  in  their  sau- 
cers, I  went  on  with  my  extract  from  the  book  I  had 
in  hand. 

I  think,  I  said,  that  the  passage  which  follows  will 
be  new  and  instructive  to  most  of  the  company.  De 
Morgan's  interpretation  of  the  cabalistic  sentence, 
made  up  as  you  will  find  it,  is  about  as  ingenious  a 
piece  of  fanciful  exposition  as  you  will  be  likely  to 
meet  with  anywhere  in  any  book,  new  or  old.  I  am 
the  more  willing  to  mention  it  as  it  suggests  a  puzzle 
which  some  of  the  company  may  like  to  work  upon. 
Observe  the  character  and  position  of  the  two  dis- 
tinguished philosophers  who  did  not  think  their  time 
thrown  away  in  laboring  at  this  seemingly  puerile 
task. 

"There  is  a  kind  of  Cabbala  Alphabetica  which 
the  investigators  of  the  numerals  in  words  would  do 
well  to  take  up  ;  it  is  the  formation  of  sentences  which 
contain  all  the  letters  of  the  alphabet,  and  each  only 
once.  No  one  has  done  it  with  v  andj  treated  as  con- 
sonants ;  but  you  and  I  can  do  it.  Dr.  Whewell  and 
I  amused  ourselves  some  years  ago  with  attempts. 
He  could  not  make  sense,  though  he  joined  words: 
he  gave  me  Phiz,  styx,  wrong,  buck,  flame,  quiz. 

"  I  gave  him  the  following,  which  he  agreed  was 
'  admirable  sense,'  —  I  certainly  think  the  words 
would  never  have  come  together  except  in  this  way  : 
I  quartz  pyx  who  fling  muck  beds.  I  long  thought 
that  no  human  being  could  say  this  under  any  circum- 
stances. At  last  I  happened  to  be  reading  a  religious 
writer,  —  as  he  thought  himself,  —  who  threw  asper- 
sions on  his  opponents  thick  and  threefold.  Heyday ! 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  165 

came  into  my  head ;  this  fellow  flings  muck  beds  ;  he 
must  be  a  quartz  pyx.  And  then  I  remembered  that 
a  pyx  is  a  sacred  vessel,  and  quartz  is  a  hard  stone,  — 
as  hard  as  the  heart  of  a  religious  foe-curser.  So  that 
the  line  is  the  motto  of  the  ferocious  sectarian  who 
turns  his  religious  vessels  into  mud-holders,  for  the 
benefit  of  those  who  will  not  see  what  he  sees." 

There  are  several  other  sentences  given,  in  which 
all  the  letters  (except  v  and  j  as  consonants)  are 
employed,  of  which  "  the  following  is  the  best :  Get 
nymph  ;  quiz  sad  brow  ;  fix  luck,  —  which  in  more 
sober  English  would  be,  Marry ;  be  cheerful ;  watch 
your  business.  There  is  more  edification,  more  reli- 
gion, in  this  than  in  all  the  666  interpretations  put  to- 
gether." 

There  is  something  very  pleasant  in  the  thought  of 
these  two  sages  playing  at  jackstraws  with  the  letters 
of  the  alphabet.  The  task  which  De  Morgan  and  Dr. 
Whewell,  "  the  omniscient,"  set  themselves  would  not 
be  unworthy  of  our  own  ingenious  scholars,  and  it 
might  be  worth  while  for  some  one  of  our  popular 
periodicals  to  offer  a  prize  for  the  best  sentence  using 
up  the  whole  alphabet,  under  the  same  conditions  as 
those  submitted  to  by  our  two  philosophers. 

This  whole  book  of  De  Morgan's  seems  to  me  full 
of  instruction.  There  is  too  much  of  it,  no  doubt ;  yet 
one  can  put  up  with  the  redundancy  for  the  sake  of 
the  multiplicity  of  shades  of  credulity  and  self-decep- 
tion it  displays  in  broad  daylight.  I  suspect  many  of 
us  are  conscious  of  a  second  personality  in  our  com- 
plex nature,  which  has  many  traits  resembling  those 
found  in  the  writers  of  the  letters  addressed  to  Mr. 
De  Morgan. 

I  have  not  ventured  very  often  nor  very  deeply  into 


16G  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

the  field  of  metaphysics,  but  if  I  were  disposed  to 
make  any  claim  in  that  direction,  it  would  be  the 
recognition  of  the  squinting  brain,  the  introduction  of 
the  term  "  cerebricity  "  corresponding  to  electricity, 
the  idiotic  area  in  the  brain  or  thinking-marrow,  and 
my  studies  of  the  second  member  in  the  partnership 
of  I-My-Self  &  Co.  I  add  the  Co.  with  especial  refer- 
ence to  a  very  interesting  article  in  a  late  Scribner,  by 
my  friend  Mr.  William  James.  In  this  article  the 
reader  will  find  a  full  exposition  of  the  doctrine  of 
plural  personality  illustrated  by  striking  cases.  I  have 
long  ago  noticed  and  referred  to  the  fact  of  the  strat- 
ification of  the  currents  of  thought  in  three  layers,  one 
over  the  other.  I  have  recognized  that  where  there 
are  two  individuals  talking  together  there  are  really 
six  personalities  engaged  in  the  conversation.  But 
the  distinct,  separable,  independent  individualities,  tak- 
ing up  conscious  life  one  after  the  other,  are  brought 
out  by  Mr.  James  and  the  authorities  to  which  he  re- 
fers as  I  have  not  elsewhere  seen  them  developed. 

Whether  we  shall  ever  find  the  exact  position  of 
the  idiotic  centre  or  area  in  the  brain  (if  such  a  spot 
exists)  is  uncertain.  We  know  exactly  where  the 
blind  spot  of  the  eye  is  situated,  and  can  demonstrate 
it  anatomically  and  physiologically.  But  we  have  only 
analogy  to  lead  us  to  infer  the  possible  or  even  prob- 
able existence  of  an  insensible  spot  in  the  thinking- 
centre.  If  there  is  a  focal  point  where  consciousness 
is  at  its  highest  development,  it  would  not  be  strange 
if  near  by  there  should  prove  to  be  an  anaesthetic  dis 
trict  or  limited  space  where  no  report  from  the  senses 
was  intelligently  interpreted.  But  all  this  is  mere 
hypothesis. 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  I  am  nominally  the 


OVER   THE  TEACUPS.  167 

head  personage  of  the  circle  of  Teacups,  I  do  not  pre- 
tend or  wish  to  deny  that  we  all  look  to  Number  Five 
as  our  chief  adviser  in  all  the  literary  questions  that 
come  before  us.  She  reads  more  and  better  than  any 
of  us.  She  is  always  ready  to  welcome  the  first  sign 
of  genius,  or  of  talent  which  approaches  genius.  She 
makes  short  work  with  all  the  pretenders  whose  only 
excuse  for  appealing  to  the  public  is  that  they  "  want 
to  be  famous."  She  is  one  of  the  very  few  persons  to 
whom  I  am  willing  to  read  any  one  of  my  own  pro- 
ductions while  it  is  yet  in  manuscript,  unpublished.  1 
know  she  is  disposed  to  make  more  of  it  than  it  de- 
serves ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  degrees  in 
her  scale  of  judgment,  and  I  can  distinguish  very 
easily  what  delights  her  from  what  pleases  only,  or  is, 
except  for  her  kindly  feeling  to  the  writer,  indifferent, 
or  open  to  severe  comment.  What  is  curious  is  that 
she  seems  to  have  no  literary  aspirations,  no  desire  to 
be  known  as  a  writer.  Yet  Number  Five  has  more 
esprit,  more  sparkle,  more  sense  in  her  talk,  than  many 
a  famous  authoress  from  whom  we  should  expect  bril- 
liant conversation. 

There  are  mysteries  about  Number  Five.  I  am  not 
going  to  describe  her  personally.  Whether  she  be- 
longs naturally  among  the  bright  young  people,  or  in 
the  company  of  the  maturer  persons,  who  have  had  a 
good  deal  of  experience  of  the  world,  and  have  reached 
the  wisdom  of  the  riper  decades  without  losing  the 
graces  of  the  earlier  ones,  it  would  be  hard  to  say. 
The  men  and  women,  young  and  old,  who  throng  about 
her  forget  their  own  ages.  "  There  is  no  such  thing 
as  time  in  her  presence,"  said  the  Professor,  the  other 
day,  in  speaking  of  her.  Whether  the  Professor  is 
in  love  with  her  or  not  is  more  than  I  can  say,  but 


168  OVER   THE  TEACUPS. 

I  am  sure  that  he  goes  to  her  for  literary  sympathy 
and  counsel,  just  as  I  do.  The  reader  may  remem- 
ber what  Number  Five  said  about  the  possibility  of 
her  getting  a  sprained  ankle,  and  her  asking  the 
young  Doctor  whether  he  felt  equal  to  taking  charge 
of  her  if  she  did.  I  would  not  for  the  world  insinuate 
that  he  wishes  she  would  slip  and  twist  her  foot  a 
little,  —  just  a  little,  you  know,  but  so  that  it  would 
have  to  be  laid  on  a  pillow  in  a  chair,  and  inspected, 
and  bandaged,  and  delicately  manipulated.  There 
was  a  banana-skin  which  she  might  naturally  have 
trodden  on,  in  her  way  to  the  tea-table.  Nobody 
can  suppose  that  it  was  there  except  by  the  most  in- 
nocent of  accidents.  There  are  people  who  will  sus- 
pect everybody.  The  idea  of  the  Doctor's  putting 
that  banana-skin  there !  People  love  to  talk  in  that 
silly  way  about  doctors. 

Number  Five  had  promised  to  read  us  a  narrative 
which  she  thought  would  interest  some  of  the  com- 
pany. Who  wrote  it  she  did  not  tell  us,  but  I  inferred 
from  various  circumstances  that  she  had  known  the 
writer.  She  read  the  story  most  effectively  in  her 
rich,  musical  voice.  I  noticed  that  when  it  came  to 
the  sounds  of  the  striking  clock,  the  ringing  of  the 
notes  was  so  like  that  which  reaches  us  from  some  far- 
off  cathedral  tower  that  we  wanted  to  bow  our  heads, 
as  if  we  had  just  heard  a  summons  to  the  Angelus. 
This  was  the  short  story  that  Number  Five  read  to 
The  Teacups :  — 

I  have  somewhere  read  this  anecdote.  Louis  the 
Fourteenth  was  looking  out,  one  day,  from  a  window 
of  his  palace  of  Saint-Germain.  It  was  a  beautiful 
landscape  which  spread  out  before  him,  and  the  mon- 


OVER   THE   TEACUPS.  169 

arch,  exulting  in  health,  strength,  and  the  splendors 
of  his  exalted  position,  felt  his  bosom  swell  with  emo- 
tions of  pride  and  happiness.  Presently  he  noticed 
the  towers  of  a  church  in  the  distance,  above  the  tree- 
tops.  "  What  building  is  that  ?  "  he  asked.  "  May 
it  please  your  Majesty,  that  is  the  Church  of  St.  Denis, 
where  your  royal  ancestors  have  been  buried  for  many 
generations."  The  answer  did  not  "  please  his  Royal 
Majesty."  There,  then,  was  the  place  where  he  too 
was  to  lie  and  moulder  in  the  dust.  He  turned,  sick 
at  heart,  from  the  window,  and  was  uneasy  until  he 
had  built  him  another  palace,  from  which  he  could 
never  be  appalled  by  that  fatal  prospect. 

Something  like  the  experience  of  Louis  the  Four- 
teenth was  that  of  the  owner  of 

THE  TERRIBLE   CLOCK. 

I  give  the  story  as  transcribed  from  the  original 
manuscript :  — 

The  clock  was  bequeathed  to  me  by  an  old  friend 
who  had  recently  died.  His  mind  had  been  a  good 
deal  disordered  in  the  later  period  of  his  life.  This 
clock,  I  am  told,  seemed  to  have  a  strange  fascination 
for  him.  His  eyes  were  fastened  on  it  during  the  last 
hours  of  his  life.  He  died  just  at  midnight.  The 
clock  struck  twelve,  the  nurse  told  me,  as  he  drew 
his  last  breath,  and  then,  without  any  known  cause, 
stopped,  with  both  hands  upon  the  hour. 

It  is  a  complex  and  costly  piece  of  mechanism.  The 
escapement  is  in  front,  so  that  every  tooth  is  seen  as 
it  frees  itself.  It  shows  the  phases  of  the  moon,  the 
month  of  the  year,  the  day  of  the  month,  and  the  day 
of  the  week,  as  well  as  the  hour  and  minute  of  the 
day. 


170  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

I  had  not  owned  it  a  week  before  I  began  to  per- 
ceive the  same  kind  of  fascination  as  that  which  its 
former  owner  had  experienced.  This  gradually  grew 
upon  me,  and  presently  led  to  trains  of  thought  which 
became  at  first  unwelcome,  then  worrying,  and  at  last 
unendurable.  I  began  by  taking  offence  at  the  moon. 
I  did  not  like  to  see  that  "  something  large  and  smooth 
and  round,"  so  like  the  skull  which  little  Peterkin 
picked  up  on  the  field  of  Blenheim.  "How  many 
times,"  I  kept  saying  to  myself,  "  is  that  wicked  old 
moon  coming  up  to  stare  at  me  ?  "  I  could  not  stand 
it.  I  stopped  a  part  of  the  machinery,  and  the  moon 
went  into  permanent  eclipse.  By  and  by  the  sounds 
of  the  infernal  machine  began  to  trouble  and  pursue 
me.  They  talked  to  me ;  more  and  more  their  lan- 
guage became  that  of  articulately  speaking  men.  They 
twitted  me  with  the  rapid  flight  of  time.  They  hur- 
ried me,  as  if  I  had  not  a  moment  to  lose.  Quick ! 
Quick !  Quick !  as  each  tooth  released  itself  from  the 
escapement.  And  as  I  looked  and  listened  there  could 
not  be  any  mistake  about  it.  I  heard  Quick !  Quick  ! 
Quick !  as  plainly,  at  least,  as  I  ever  heard  a  word 
from  the  phonograph.  I  stood  watching  the  dial  one 
day,  —  it  was  near  one  o'clock,  —  and  a  strange  at- 
traction held  me  fastened  to  the  spot.  Presently  some- 
thing appeared  to  trip  or  stumble  inside  of  the  infer- 
nal mechanism.  I  waited  for  the  sound  I  knew  was 
to  follow.  How  nervous  I  got!  It  seemed  to  me 
that  it  would  never  strike.  At  last  the  minute-hand 
reached  the  highest  point  of  the  dial.  Then  there  was 
a  little  stir  among  the  works,  as  there  is  in  a  congre- 
gation as  it  rises  to  receive  the  benediction.  It  was 
no  form  of  blessing  which  rung  out  those  deep,  almost 
sepulchral  tones.  But  the  word  they  uttered  could 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  171 

not  be  mistaken.  I  can  hear  its  prolonged,  solemn 
vibrations  as  if  I  were  standing  before  the  clock  at 
this  moment. 

Gone !  Yes,  I  said  to  myself,  gone,  —  its  record 
made  up  to  be  opened  in  eternity. 

I  stood  still,  staring  vaguely  at  the  dial  as  in  a 
trance.  And  as  the  next  hour  creeps  stealthily  up,  it 
starts  all  at  once,  and  cries  aloud,  Gone  !  —  Gone ! 
The  sun  sinks  lower,  the  hour-hand  creeps  downward 
with  it,  until  I  hear  the  thrice-repeated  monosyllable, 
Gone  !  —  Gone !  —  Gone  !  So  on  through  the  dark- 
ening hours,  until  at  the  dead  of  night  the  long  roll  is 
called,  and  with  the  last  Gone  !  the  latest  of  the  long 
procession  that  filled  the  day  follows  its  ghostly  com- 
panions into  the  stillness  and  darkness  of  the  past. 

I  silenced  the  striking  part  of  the  works.  Still  the 
escapement  kept  repeating,  Quick  !  .Quick  !  Quick ! 
Still  the  long  minute-hand,  like  the  dart  in  the  grasp 
of  Death,  as  we  see  it  in  Roubiliac's  monument  to 
Mrs.  Nightingale,  among  the  tombs  of  Westminster 
Abbey,  stretched  itself  out,  ready  to  transfix  each  hour 
as  it  passed,  and  make  it  my  last.  I  sat  by  the  clock 
to  watch  the  leap  from  one  day  of  the  week  to  the 
next.  Then  would  come,  in  natural  order,  the  long 
stride  from  one  month  to  the  following  one. 

I  could  endure  it  no  longer.  "  Take  that  clock 
away  !  "  I  said.  They  took  it  away.  They  took  me 
away,  too,  —  they  thought  I  needed  country  air.  The 
sounds  and  motions  still  pursued  me  in  imagination. 
I  was  very  nervous  when  I  came  here.  The  walks  are 
pleasant,  but  the  walls  seem  to  me  unnecessarily  high. 
The  boarders  are  numerous  ;  a  little  miscellaneous,  I 
think.  But  we  have  the  Queen,  and  the  President 
of  the  United  States,  and  several  other  distinguished 


172  OVER    THE  TEACUPS. 

persons,  if  we  may  trust  what  they  tell  about  them- 
selves. 

After  we  had  listened  to  Number  Five's  story,  I  was 
requested  to  read  a  couple  of  verses  written  by  me 
when  the  guest  of  my  friends,  whose  name  is  hinted 
by  the  title  prefixed  to  my  lines. 

LA  MAISON  D'OR. 
(BAR  HARBOR.) 

From  this  fair  home  behold  on  either  side 
The  restful  mountains  or  the  restless  sea: 

So  the  warm  sheltering  walls  of  life  divide 
Time  and  its  tides  from  still  eternity. 

Look  on  the  waves  :  their  stormy  voices  teach 
That  not  on  earth  may  toil  and  struggle  cease. 

Look  on  the  mountains  :  better  far  than  speech 
Their  silent  promise  of  eternal  peace. 


vm. 

I  HAD  intended  to  devote  this  particular  report  to 
an  account  of  my  replies  to  certain  questions  which 
have  been  addressed  to  me,  —  questions  which  I  have 
a  right  to  suppose  interest  the  public,  and  which,  there- 
fore, I  was  justified  in  bringing  before  The  Teacups, 
and  presenting  to  the  readers  of  these  articles. 

Some  may  care  for  one  of  these  questions,  and  some 
for  another.  A  good  many  young  people  think  noth- 
ing about  life  as  it  presents  itself  in  the  far  horizon, 
bounded  by  the  snowy  ridges  of  threescore  and  the 
dim  peaks  beyond  that  remote  barrier.  Again,  there 
are  numbers  of  persons  who  know  nothing  at  all  about 
the  Jews ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  those 
who  can,  or  think  they  can,  detect  the  Israelitish  blood 
in  many  of  their  acquaintances  who  believe  themselves 
of  the  purest  Japhetic  origin,  and  are  full  of  preju- 
dices about  the  Semitic  race. 

I  do*  not  mean  to  be  cheated  out  of  my  intentions. 
I  propose  to  answer  my  questioners  on  the  two  points 
just  referred  to,  but  I  find  myself  so  much  interested 
in  the  personal  affairs  of  The  Teacups  that  I  must  deal 
with  them  before  attacking  those  less  exciting  sub- 
jects. There  is  no  use,  let  me  say  here,  in  addressing 
to  me  letters  marked  "  personal,  "  u  private, "  "  confi- 
dential, "  and  so  forth,  asking  me  how  I  came  to  know 
what  happened  in  certain  conversations  of  which  I 
shall  give  a  partial  account.  If  there  is  a  very  sensi- 


174  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

tive  phonograph  lying  about  here  and  there  in  unsus- 
pected corners,  that  might  account  for  some  part  of 
my  revelations.  If  Delilah,  whose  hearing  is  of  almost 
supernatural  delicacy,  reports  to  me  what  she  over- 
hears, it  might  explain  a  part  of  the  mystery.  I  do 
not  want  to  accuse  Delilah,  but  a  young  person  who 
assures  me  she  can  hear  my  watch  ticking  in  my 
pocket,  when  I  am  in  the  next  room,  might  undoubt- 
edly tell  many  secrets,  if  so  disposed.  Number  Five 
is  pretty  nearly  omniscient,  and  she  and  I  are  on  the 
best  terms  with  each  other.  These  are  all  the  hints  I 
shall  give  you  at  present. 

The  Teacups  of  whom  the  least  has  been  heard  at 
our  table  are  the  Tutor  and  the  Musician.  The  Tutor 
is  a  modest  young  man,  kept  down  a  little,  I  think,  by 
the  presence  of  older  persons,  like  the  Professor  and 
myself.  I  have  met  him  several  times,  of  late,  walk- 
ing with  different  lady  Teacups :  once  with  the  Amer- 
ican Annex ;  twice  with  the  English  Annex ;  once 
with  the  two  Annexes  together ;  once  with  Number 
Five. 

I  have  mentioned  the  fact  that  the  Tutor  is  a  poet 
as  among  his  claims  to  our  attention.  I  must  add  that 
I  do  not  think  any  the  worse  of  him  for  expressing  his 
emotions  and  experiences  in  verse.  For  though  rhym- 
ing is  often  a  bad  sign  in  a  young  man,  especially  if 
he  is  already  out  of  his  teens,  there  are  those  to  whom 
it  is  as  natural,  one  might  almost  say  as  necessary,  as 
it  is  to  a  .young  bird  to  fly.  One  does  not  care  to  see 
barnyard  fowls  tumbling  about  in  trying  to  use  their 
wings.  They  have  a  pair  of  good,  stout  drumsticks, 
and  had  better  keep  to  them,  for  the  most  part.  But 
that  feeling  does  not  apply  to  young  eagles,  or  even  to 
young  swallows  and  sparrows.  The  Tutor  is  by  no 


OVBR  THE  TEACUPS.  175 

means  one  of  those  ignorant,  silly,  conceited  phrase- 
tinklers,  who  live  on  the  music  of  their  own  jingling 
syllables  and  the  flattery  of  their  foolish  friends.  I 
think  Number  Five  must  appreciate  him.  He  is  sin- 
cere, warm-hearted,  —  his  poetry  shows  that,  —  not  in 
haste  to  be  famous,  and  he  looks  to  me  as  if  he  only 
wanted  love  to  steady  him.  With  one  of  those  two 
young  girls  he  ought  certainly  to  be  captivated,  if  he 
is  not  already.  Twice  walking  with  the  English  An- 
nex, I  met  him,  and  they  were  so  deeply  absorbed  in 
conversation  they  hardly  noticed  me.  He  has  been 
talking  over  the  matter  with  Number  Five,  who  is 
just  the  kind  of  person  for  a  confidante. 

"  I  know  I  feel  very  lonely,  "  he  was  saying,  "  and 
I  only  wish  I  felt  sure  that  I  could  make  another  per- 
son happy.  My  life  would  be  transfigured  if  I  could 
find  such  a  one,  whom  I  could  love  well  enough  to 
give  my  life  to  her,  —  for  her,  if  that  were  needful,  — 
and  who  felt  an  affinity  for  me,  if  any  one  could." 

"  And  why  not  your  English  maiden  ?  "  said  Num- 
ber Five. 

"  What  makes  you  think  I  care  more  for  her  than 
for  her  American  friend  ?  "  said  the  Tutor. 

"  Why,  have  n't  I  met  you  walking  with  her,  and 
did  n't  you  both  seem  greatly  interested  in  the  subject 
you  were  discussing?  I  thought,  of  course,  it  was 
something  more  or  less  sentimental  that  you  were 
talking  about." 

"  I  was  explaining  that  '  enclitic  de '  in  Browning's 
Grammarian's  Funeral.  I  don't  think  there  was  any- 
thing very  sentimental  about  that.  She  is  an  inquisi- 
tive creature,  that  English  girl.  She  is  very  fond  of 
asking  me  questions,  —  in  fact,  both  of  them  are. 
There  is  one  curious  difference  between  them  :  the 


176  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

English  girl  settles  down  into  her  answers  and  is 
quiet ;  the  American  girl  is  never  satisfied  with  yes- 
terday's conclusions ;  she  is  always  reopening  old 
questions  in  the  light  of  some  new  fact  or  some  novel 
idea.  I  suppose  that  people  bred  from  childhood  to 
lean  their  backs  against  the  wall  of  the  Creed  and  the 
church  catechism  find  it  hard  to  sit  up  straight  on  the 
republican  stool,  which  obliges  them  to  stiffen  their 
own  backs.  Which  of  these  two  girls  would  be  the 
safest  choice  for  a  young  man  ?  I  should  really  like 
to  hear  what  answer  you  would  make  if  I  consulted 
you  seriously,  with  a  view  to  my  own  choice,  —  on  the 
supposition  that  there  was  a  fair  chance  that  either  of 
them  might  be  won." 

"  The  one  you  are  in  love  with,  "  answered  Number 
Five. 

"  But  what  if  it  were  a  case  of  '  How  happy  could 
I  be  with  either  *  ?  Which  offers  the  best  chance  of 
happiness,  —  a  marriage  between  two  persons  of  the 
same  country,  or  a  marriage  where  one  of  the  parties 
is  of  foreign  birth?  Everything  else  being  equal, 
which  is  best  for  an  American  to  marry,  an  American 
or  an  English  girl  ?  We  need  not  confine  the  ques- 
tion to  those  two  young  persons,  but  put  it  more  gen- 
erally." 

"  There  are  reasons  on  both  sides, "  answered  Num- 
ber Five.  "  I  have  often  talked  this  matter  over  with 
The  Dictator.  This  is  the  way  he  speaks  about  it.  — 
English  blood  is  apt  to  tell  well  on  the  stock  upon 
which  it  is  engrafted.  Over  and  over  again  he  has 
noticed  finely  grown  specimens  of  human  beings,  and 
on  inquiry  has  found  that  one  or  both  of  the  parents 
or  grandparents  were  of  British  origin.  The  chances 
are  that  the  descendants  of  the  imported  stock  will  be 


OVER   THE   TEACUPS.  177 

of  a  richer  organization,  more  florid,  more  muscular, 
with  mellower  voices,  than  the  native  whose  blood  has 
been  unmingled  with  that  of  new  emigrants  since  the 
earlier  colonial  times.  —  So  talks  The  Dictator.  —  I 
myself  think  the  American  will  find  his  English  wife 
concentrates  herself  more  readily  and  more  exclusively 
on  her  husband,  —  for  the  obvious  reason  that  she  is 
obliged  to  live  mainly  in  him.  I  remember  hearing 
an  old  friend  of  my  early  days  say,  '  A  woman  does 
not  bear  transplanting.'  It  does  not  do  to  trust  these 
old  sayings,  and  yet  they  almost  always  have  some 
foundation  in  the  experience  of  mankind,  which  has 
repeated  them  from  generation  to  generation.  Happy 
is  the  married  woman  of  foreign  birth  who  can  say 
to  her  husband,  as  Andromache  said  to  Hector,  after 
enumerating  all  the  dear  relatives  she  had  lost,  — 

*  Yet  while  my  Hector  still  survives,  I  see 
My  father,  mother,  brethren,  all  in  thee  ! ' 

How  many  a  sorrowing  wife,  exiled  from  her  native 
country,  dreams  of  the  mother  she  shall  see  no  more ! 
How  many  a  widow,  in  a  strange  land,  wishes  that  her 
poor,  worn-out  body  could  be  laid  among  her  kinsfolk, 
in  the  little  churchyard  where  she  used  to  gather 
daisies  in  her  childhood !  It  takes  a  great  deal  of  love 
to  keep  down  the  *  climbing  sorrow  '  that  swells  up  in 
a  woman's  throat  when  such  memories  seize  upon  her, 
in  her  moments  of  desolation.  But  if  a  foreign-born 
woman  does  willingly  give  up  all  for  a  man,  and  never 
looks  backward,  like  Lot's  wife,  she  is  a  prize  that  it 
is  worth  running  a  risk  to  gain,  —  that  is,  if  she  has 
the  making  of  a  good  woman  in  her ;  and  a  few  years 
will  go  far  towards  naturalizing  her." 

The  Tutor  listened  to  Number  Five  with  much  aj> 


178  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

parent  interest.     "  And  now,  "  he  said,  "  what  do  you 
think  of  her  companion  ?  " 

"  A  charming  girl  for  a  man  of  a  quiet,  easy  tem- 
perament. The  great  trouble  is  with  her  voice.  It  is 
pitched  a  full  note  too  high.  It  is  aggressive,  disturb- 
ing, and  would  wear  out  a  nervous  man  without  his 
ever  knowing  what  was  the  matter  with  him.  A 
good  many  crazy  Northern  people  would  recover  their 
reason  if  they  could  live  for  a  year  or  two  among  the 
blacks  of  the  Southern  States.  But  the  penetrating, 
perturbing  quality  of  the  voices  of  many  of  our 
Northern  women  has  a  great  deal  to  answer  for  in  the 
way  of  determining  love  and  friendship.  You  remem- 
ber that  dear  friend  of  ours  who  left  us  not  long  since  ? 
If  there  were  more  voices  like  hers,  the  world  would 
be  a  different  place  to  live  in.  I  do  not  believe  any 
man  or  woman  ever  came  within  the  range  of  those 
sweet,  tranquil  tones  without  being  hushed,  captivated, 
entranced  I  might  almost  say,  by  their  calming,  sooth- 
ing influence.  Can  you  not  imagine  the  tones  in  which 
those  words,  'Peace,  be  still,'  were  spoken?  Such 
was  the  effect  of  the  voice  to  which  but  a  few  weeks 
ago  we  were  listening.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  it 
has  died  out  of  human  consciousness.  Can  such  a 
voice  be  spared  from  that  world  of  happiness  to  which 
we  fondly  look  forward,  where  we  love  to  dream,  if  we 
do  not  believe  with  assured  conviction,  that  whatever 
is  loveliest  in  this  our  mortal  condition  shall  be  with 
us  again  as  an  undying  possession?  Your  English 
friend  has  a  very  agreeable  voice,  round,  mellow, 
cheery,  and  her  articulation  is  charming.  Other  things 
being  equal,  I  think  you,  who  are,  perhaps,  oversensi- 
tive, would  live  from  two  to  three  years  longer  with 
her  than  with  the  other.  I  suppose  a  man  who  lived 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  179 

within  hearing  of  a  murmuring  brook  would  find  his 
life  shortened  if  a  sawmill  were  set  up  within  earshot 
of  his  dwelling." 

"  And  so  you  advise  me  to  make  love  to  the  Eng- 
lish girl,  do  you  ?  "  asked  the  Tutor. 

Number  Five  laughed.  It  was  not  a  loud  laugh,  — 
she  never  laughed  noisily;  it  was  not  a  very  hearty 
laugh  ;  the  idea  did  not  seem  to  amuse  her  much. 

"  No,"  she  said,  "  I  won't  take  the  responsibility. 
Perhaps  this  is  a  case  in  which  the  true  reading  of 
Gay's  line  would  be 

How  happy  could  I  be  with  neither. 

There  are  several  young  women  in  the  world  besides 
our  two  Annexes." 

I  question  whether  the  Tutor  had  asked  those  ques- 
tions very  seriously,  and  I  doubt  if  Number  Five 
thought  he  was  very  much  in  earnest. 

One  of  The  Teacups  reminded  me  that  I  had  prom- 
ised to  say  something  of  my  answers  to  certain  ques- 
tions. So  I  began  at  once :  — 

I  have  given  the  name  of  brain  -  tappers  to  the 
literary  operatives  who  address  persons  whose  names 
are  well  known  to  the  public,  asking  their  opinions 
or  their  experiences  on  subjects  which  are  at  the  time 
of  general  interest.  They  expect  a  literary  man  or  a 
scientific  expert  to  furnish  them  materials  for  sympo- 
sia and  similar  articles,  to  be  used  by  them  for  their 
own  special  purposes.  Sometimes  they  expect  to  pay 
for  the  information  furnished  them ;  at  other  times, 
the  honor  of  being  included  in  a  list  of  noted  person- 
ages who  have  received  similar  requests  is  thought 
sufficient  compensation.  The  object  with  which  the 


180  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

brain-tapper  puts  his  questions  may  be  a  purely  be- 
nevolent and  entirely  disinterested  one.  Such  was  the 
object  of  some  of  those  questions  which  I  have  received 
and  answered.  There  are  other  cases,  in  which  the 
brain-tapper  is  acting  much  as  those  persons  do  who 
stop  a  physician  in  the  street  to  talk  with  him  about 
their  livers  or  stomachs,  or  other  internal  arrange- 
ments, instead  of  going  to  his  office  and  consulting 
him,  expecting  to  pay  for  his  advice.  Others  are 
more  like  those  busy  women  who,  having  the  gener- 
ous intention  of  making  a  handsome  present  to  their 
pastor,  at  as  little  expense  as  may  be,  send  to  all  their 
neighbors  and  acquaintances  for  scraps  of  various  ma- 
terials, out  of  which  the  imposing  "bedspread"  or 
counterpane  is  to  be  elaborated. 

That  is  all  very  well  so  long  as  old  pieces  of  stuff 
are  all  they  call  for,  but  it  is  a  different  matter  to  ask 
for  clippings  out  of  new  and  uncut  rolls  of  cloth.  So 
it  is  one  thing  to  ask  an  author  for  liberty  to  use  ex- 
tracts from  his  published  writings,  and  it  is  a  very 
different  thing  to  expect  him  to  write  expressly  for 
the  editor's  or  compiler's  piece  of  literary  patchwork. 

I  have  received  many  questions  within  the  last  year 
or  two,  some  of  which  I  am  willing  to  answer,  but 
prefer  to  answer  at  my  own  time,  in  my  own  way, 
through  my  customary  channel  of  communication  with 
the  public.  I  hope  I  shall  not  be  misunderstood  as 
implying  any  reproach  against  the  inquirers  who,  in 
order  to  get  at  facts  which  ought  to  be  known,  apply 
to  all  whom  they  can  reach  for  information.  Their 
inquisitiveness  is  not  always  agreeable  or  welcome, 
but  we  ought  to  be  glad  that  there  are  mousing  fact- 
hunters  to  worry  us  with  queries  to  which,  for  the 
sake  of  the  public,  we  are  bound  to  give  our  atten- 
tion. Let  me  begin  with  my  brain-tappers. 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  181 

And  first,  as  the  papers  have  given  publicity  to  the 
fact  that  I,  The  Dictator  of  this  tea-table,  have  reached 
the  a^e  of  threescore  years  and  twenty,  I  am  requested 
to  give  information  as  to  how  I  managed  to  do  it,  and 
to  explain  just  how  they  can  go  and  do  likewise.  I 
think  I  can  lay  down  a  few  rules  that  will  help  them 
to  the  desired  result.  There  is  no  certainty  in  these 
biological  problems,  but  there  are  reasonable  probabil- 
ities upon  which  it  is  safe  to  act. 

The  first  thing  to  be  done  is,  some  years  before 
birth,  to  advertise  for  a  couple  of  parents  both  belong- 
ing to  long-lived  families.  Especially  let  the  mother 
come  of  a  race  in  which  octogenarians  and  nonagena- 
rians are  very  common  phenomena.  There  are  prac- 
tical difficulties  in  following  out  this  suggestion,  but 
possibly  the  forethought  of  your  progenitors,  or  that 
concurrence  of  circumstances  which  we  call  accident, 
may  have  arranged  this  for  you. 

Do  not  think  that  a  robust  organization  is  any  war- 
rant of  long  life,  nor  that  a  frail  and  slight  bodily 
constitution  necessarily  means  scanty  length  of  days. 
Many  a  strong-limbed  young  man  and  many  a  bloom- 
ing young  woman  have  I  seen  failing  and  dropping 
away  in  or  before  middle  life,  and  many  a  delicate 
and  slightly  constituted  person  outliving  the  athletes 
and  the  beauties  of  their  generation.  Whether  the 
excessive  development  of  the  muscular  system  is  com- 
patible with  the  best  condition  of  general  health  is,  I 
think,  more  than  doubtful.  The  muscles  are  great 
sponges  that  suck  up  and  make  use  of  large  quantities 
of  blood,  and  the  other  organs  must  be  liable  to  suffer 
for  want  of  their  share. 

One  of  the  Seven  Wise  Men  of  Greece  boiled  his 
wisdom  down  into  two  words,  p-qSev  dyai>,  —  nothing  too 


182  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

much.  It  is  a  rule  which  will  apply  to  food,  exercise, 
labor,  sleep,  and,  in  short,  to  every  part  of  life.  This 
is  not  so  very  difficult  a  matter  if  one  begins  in  good 
season  and  forms  regular  habits.  But  what  if  1 
should  lay  down  the  rule,  Be  cheerful ;  take  all  the 
troubles  and  trials  of  life  with  perfect  equanimity  and 
a  smiling  countenance  ?  Admirable  directions !  Youl 
friend,  the  curly-haired  blonde,  with  florid  complexion, 
round  cheeks,  the  best  possible  digestion  and  respira* 
tion,  the  stomach  of  an  ostrich  and  the  lungs  of  a 
pearl-diver,  finds  it  perfectly  easy  to  carry  them  into 
practice.  You,  of  leaden  complexion,  with  black  and 
lank  hair,  lean,  hollow-eyed,  dyspeptic,  nervous,  find 
it  not  so  easy  to  be  always  hilarious  and  happy.  The 
truth  is  that  the  persons  of  that  buoyant  disposition 
which  comes  always  heralded  by  a  smile,  as  a  yacht 
driven  by  a  favoring  breeze  carries  a  wreath  of  spar- 
kling foam  before  her,  are  born  with  their  happiness 
ready  made.  They  cannot  help  being  cheerful  any 
more  than  their  saturnine  fellow-mortal  can  help  see- 
ing everything  through  the  cloud  he  carries  with  him. 
I  give  you  the  precept,  then,  Be  cheerful,  for  just 
what  it  is  worth,  as  I  would  recommend  to  you  to  be 
six  feet,  or  at  least  five  feet  ten,  in  stature.  You  can- 
not settle  that  matter  for  yourself,  but  you  can  stand 
up  straight,  and  give  your  five  feet  five  its  full  value. 
You  can  help  along  a  little  by  wearing  high-heeled 
shoes.  So  you  can  do  something  to  encourage  your- 
self in  serenity  of  aspect  and  demeanor,  keeping  your 
infirmities  and  troubles  in  the  background  instead  of 
making  them  the  staple  of  your  conversation.  This 
piece  of  advice,  if  followed,  may  be  worth  from  three 
to  five  years  of  the  fourscore  which  you  hope  to  at- 
tain. 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  188 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  instead  of  going  about  cheer- 
ily in  society,  making  the  best  of  everything  and  as 
far  as  possible  forgetting  your  troubles,  you  can  make 
up  your  mind  to  economize  all  your  stores  of  vital 
energy,  to  hoard  your  life  as  a  miser  hoards  his 
money,  you  will  stand  a  fair  chance  of  living  until  you 
are  tired  of  life,  —  fortunate  if  everybody  is  not  tired 
of  you. 

One  of  my  prescriptions  for  longevity  may  startle 
you  somewhat.  It  is  this :  Become  the  subject  of  a 
mortal  disease.  Let  half  a  dozen  doctors  thump  you, 
and  knead  you,  and  test  you  in  every  possible  way, 
and  render  their  verdict  that  you  have  an  internal 
complaint ;  they  don't  know  exactly  what  it  is,  but  it 
will  certainly  kill  you  by  and  by.  Then  bid  farewell 
to  the  world  and  shut  yourself  up  for  an  invalid.  If 
you  are  threescore  years  old  when  you  begin  this  mode 
of  life,  you  may  very  probably  last  twenty  years,  and 
there  you  are,  —  an  octogenarian.  In  the  mean  time, 
your  friends  outside  have  been  dropping  off,  one  after 
another,  until  you  find  yourself  almost  alone,  nursing 
your  mortal  complaint  as  if  it  were  your  baby,  hug- 
ging it  and  kept  alive  by  it,  —  if  to  exist  is  to  live. 
Who  has  not  seen  cases  like  this,  —  a  man  or  a  wo- 
man shutting  himself  or  herself  up,  visited  by  a  doc- 
tor or  a  succession  of  doctors  (I  remember  that  once, 
in  my  earlier  experience,  I  was  the  twenty-seventh 
physician  who  had  been  consulted),  always  taking 
medicine,  until  everybody  was  reminded  of  that  impa- 
tient speech  of  a  relative  of  one  of  these  invalid  vam- 
pires who  live  on  the  blood  of  tired-out  attendants, 
"  I  do  wish  she  would  get  well  —  or  something  "  ? 
Persons  who  are  shut  up  in  that  way,  confined  to  their 
chambers,  sometimes  to  their  beds,  have  a  very  small 


184  OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  . 

amount  of  vital  expenditure,  and  wear  out  very  little 
of  their  living  substance.  They  are  like  lamps  with 
half  their  wicks  picked  down,  and  will  continue  to 
burn  when  other  lamps  have  used  up  all  their  oil.  An 
insurance  office  might  make  money  by  taking  no  risks 
except  on  lives  of  persons  suffering  from  mortal  dis- 
ease. It  is  on  this  principle  of  economizing  the 
powers  of  life  that  a  very  eminent  American  physician, 
—  Dr.  Weir  Mitchell,  a  man  of  genius,  —  has  founded 
his  treatment  of  certain  cases  of  nervous  exhaustion. 

What  have  I  got  to  say  about  temperance,  the  use 
of  animal  food,  and  so  forth?  These  are  questions 
asked  me.  Nature  has  proved  a  wise  teacher,  as  I 
think,  in  my  own  case.  The  older  I  grow,  the  less 
use  I  make  of  alcoholic  stimulants.  In  fact,  I  hardly 
meddle  with  them  at  all,  except  a  glass  or  two  of 
champagne  occasionally.  I  find  that  by  far  the  best 
borne  of  all  drinks  containing  alcohol.  I  do  not  sup- 
pose my  experience  can  be  the  foundation,  of  a  univer- 
sal rule.  Dr.  Holyoke,  who  lived  to  be  a  hundred, 
used  habitually,  in  moderate  quantities,  a  mixture  of 
cider,  water,  and  rum.  I  think,  as  one  grows  older, 
less  food,  especially  less  animal  food,  is  required.  But 
old  people  have  a  right  to  be  epicures,  if  they  can  af- 
ford it.  The  pleasures  of  the  palate  are  among  the 
last  gratifications  of  the  senses  allowed  them.  We 
begin  life  as  little  cannibals,  —  feeding  on  the  flesh 
and  blood  of  our  mothers.  We  range  through  all  the 
vegetable  and  animal  products  of  nature,  and  I  sup- 
pose, if  the  second  childhood  could  return  to  the  food 
of  the  first,  it  might  prove  a  wholesome  diet. 

What  do  I  say  to  smoking  ?  I  cannot  grudge  an 
old  man  his  pipe,  but  I  think  tobacco  often  does  a 
good  deal  of  harm  to  the  health,  —  to  the  eyes  espe- 


OVER  THE   TEACUPS.  185 

cially,  to  the  nervous  system  generally,  producing  head- 
ache, palpitation,  and  trembling.  I  myself  gave  it  up 
many  years  ago.  Philosophically  speaking,  I  think 
self-narcotization  and  self-alcoholization  are  rather  ig- 
noble substitutes  for  undisturbed  self-consciousness 
and  unfettered  self-control. 

Here  is  another  of  those  brain-tapping  letters,  of 
similar  character,  which  I  have  no  objection  to  answer- 
ing at  my  own  time  and  in  the  place  which  best  suits 
me.  As  the  questions  must  be  supposed  to  be  asked 
with  a  purely  scientific  and  philanthropic  purpose,  it 
can  make  little  difference  when  and  where  they  are 
answered.  For  myself,  I  prefer  our  own  tea-table  to 
the  symposia  to  which  I  am  often  invited.  I  do  not 
quarrel  with  those  who  invite  their  friends  to  a  ban- 
quet to  which  many  strangers  are  expected  to  contrib- 
ute. It  is  a  very  easy  and  pleasant  way  of  giving  an 
entertainment  at  little  cost  and  with  no  responsibility. 
Somebody  has  been  writing  to  me  about  "  Oatmeal 
and  Literature,"  and  somebody  else  wants  to  know 
whether  I  have  found  character  influenced  by  diet ; 
also  whether,  in  my  opinion,  oatmeal  is  preferable  to 
pie  as  an  American  national  food. 

In  answer  to  these  questions,  I  should  say  that  I  have 
my  beliefs  and  prejudices  ;  but  if  I  were  pressed  hard 
for  my  proofs  of  their  correctness,  I  should  make  but  a 
poor  show  in  the  witness-box.  Most  assuredly  I  do 
believe  that  body  and  mind  are  much  influenced  by 
the  kind  of  food  habitually  depended  upon.  I  am 
persuaded  that  a  too  exclusively  porcine  diet  gives  a 
bristly  character  to  the  beard  and  hair,  which  is  bor- 
rowed from  the  animal  whose  tissues  these  stiff-bearded 
compatriots  of  ours  have  too  largely  assimilated.  I 


186  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

can  never  stray  among  the  village  people  of  our  windy 
capes  without  now  and  then  coming  upon  a  human  be- 
ing who  looks  as  if  he  had  been  split,  salted,  and 
dried,  like  the  salt-fish  which  has  built  up  his  arid  or- 
ganism. If  the  body  is  modified  by  the  food  which 
nourishes  it,  the  mind  and  character  very  certainly  will 
be  modified  by  it  also.  We  know  enough  of  their 
close  connection  with  each  other  to  be  sure  of  that, 
without  any  statistical  observations  to  prove  it. 

Do  you  really  want  to  know  "  whether  oatmeal  is 
preferable  to  pie  as  an  American  national  food  "  ?  I 
suppose  the  best  answer  I  can  give  to  your  question  is 
to  tell  you  what  is  my  own  practice.  Oatmeal  in  the 
morning,  as  an  architect  lays  a  bed  of  concrete  to  form 
a  base  for  his  superstructure.  Pie  when  I  can  get  it ; 
that  is,  of  the  genuine  sort,  for  I  am  not  patriotic 
enough  to  think  very  highly  of  the  article  named  after 
the  Father  of  his  Country,  who  was  first  in  war,  first 
in  peace,  —  not  first  in  pies,  according  to  my  standard. 

There  is  a  very  odd  prejudice  against  pie  as  an  ar- 
ticle of  diet.  It  is  common  to  hear  every  form  of 
bodily  degeneracy  and  infirmity  attributed  to  this  par- 
ticular favorite  food.  I  see  no  reason  or  sense  in  it. 
Mr.  Emerson  believed  in  pie,  and  was  almost  indig- 
nant when  a  fellow-traveller  refused  the  slice  he  of- 
fered him.  "  Why,  Mr. ,"  said  he,  "  what  is  pie 

made  fog  J"  If  every  Green  Mountain  boy  has  not 
eaten  a  thousand  times  his  weight  in  apple,  pumpkin, 
squash,  and  mince  pie,  call  me  a  dumpling.  And 
Colonel  Ethan  Allen  was  one  of  them,  —  Ethan  Allen, 
who,  as  they  used  to  say,  could  wrench  off  the  head  of 
a  wrought  nail  with  his  teeth. 

If  you  mean  to  keep  as  well  as  possible,  the  less 
you  think  about  your  health  the  better.  You  know 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  187 

enough  not  to  eat  or  drink  what  you  have  found  does 
not  agree  with  you.  You  ought  to  know  enough  not 
to  expose  yourself  needlessly  to  draughts.  If  you 
take  a  "  constitutional,"  walk  with  the  wind  when  you 
can,  and  take  a  closed  car  against  it  if  you  can  get 
one.  Walking  against  the  wind  is  one  of  the  most 
dangerous  kinds  of  exposure,  if  you  are  sensitive  to 
cold.  But  except  a  few  simple  rules  such  as  I  have 
just  ^given,  let  your  health  take  care  of  itself  so  long 
as  it  behaves  decently.  If  you  want  to  be  sure  not 
to  reach  threescore  and  twenty,  get  a  little  box  of 
homoeopathic  pellets  and  a  little  book  of  homoeopathic 
prescriptions.  I  had  a  poor  friend  who  fell  into  that 
way,  and  became  at  last  a  regular  Hahnemaniac.  He 
left  a  box  of  his  little  jokers,  which  at  last  came  into 
my  hands.  The  poor  fellow  had  cultivated  symptoms 
as  other  people  cultivate  roses  or  chrysanthemums. 
What  a  luxury  of  choice  his  imagination  presented  to 
him  !  When  one  watches  for  symptoms,  every  organ 
in  the  body  is  ready  to  put  in  its  claim.  By  and  by 
a  real  illness  attacked  him,  and  the  box  of  little  pel- 
lets was  shut  up,  to  minister  to  his  fancied  evils  no 
longer. 

Let  me  tell  you  one  thing.  I  think  if  patients  and 
physicians  were  in  the  habit  of  recognizing  the  fact  I 
am  going  to  mention,  both  would  be  gainers.  The 
law  I  refer  to  must  be  familiar  to  all  observing  physi- 
cians, and  to  all  intelligent  persons  who  have  observed 
their  own  bodily  and  mental  conditions.  This  is  the 
curve  of  health.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the 
normal  state  of  health  is  represented  by  a  straight 
horizontal  line.  Independently  of  the  well-known 
causes  which  raise  or  depress  the  standard  of  vitality, 
there  seems  to  be,  —  I  think  I  may  venture  to  say 


188  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

there  is, —  a  rhythmic  undulation  in  the  flow  of  the  vital 
force.  The  "  dynamo  "  which  furnishes  the  working 
powers  of  consciousness  and  action  has  its  annual,  its 
monthly,  its  diurnal  waves,  even  its  momentary  rip- 
ples, in  the  current  it  furnishes.  There  are  greater 
and  lesser  curves  in  the  movement  of  every  day's  life, 
—  a  series  of  ascending  and  descending  movements,  a 
periodicity  depending  on  the  very  nature  of  the  force 
at  work  in  the  living  organism.  Thus  we  have  our 
good  seasons  and  our  bad  seasons,  our  good  days'  and 
our  bad  days,  life  climbing  and  descending  in  long  or 
short  undulations,  which  I  have  called  the  curve  of 
health. 

From  this  fact  spring  a  great  proportion  of  the 
errors  of  medical  practice.  On  it  are  based  the  delu- 
sions of  the  various  shadowy  systems  which  impose 
themselves  on  the  ignorant  and  half-learned  public  as 
branches  or  "  schools  "  of  science.  A  remedy  taken 
at  the  time  of  the  ascent  in  the  curve  of  health  is 
found  successful.  The  same  remedy  taken  while  the 
curve  is  in  its  downward  movement  proves  a  failure. 

So  long  as  this  biological  law  exists,  so  long  the 
charlatan  will  keep  his  hold  on  the  ignorant  public. 
So  long  as  it  exists,  the  wisest  practitioner  will  be  lia- 
ble to  deceive  himself  about  the  effect  of  what  he  calls 
and  loves  to  think  are  his  remedies.  Long-continued 
and  sagacious  observation  will  to  some  extent  unde- 
ceive him  ;  but  were  it  not  for  the  happy  illusion  that 
his  useless  or  even  deleterious  drugs  were  doing  good 
service,  many  a  practitioner  would  give  up  his  calling 
for  one  in  which  he  could  be  more  certain  that  he  was 
really  being  useful  to  the  subjects  of  his  professional 
dealings.  For  myself,  I  should  prefer  a  physician  of 
a  sanguine  temperament,  who  had  a  firm  belief  in  him- 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  189 

self  and  his  methods.  I  do  not  wonder  at  all  that  the 
public  support  a  whole  community  of  pretenders  who 
show  the  portraits  of  the  patients  they  have  "  cured." 
The  best  physicians  will  tell  you  that,  though  many 
patients  get  well  under  their  treatment,  they  rarely 
cure  anybody.  If  you  are  told  also  that  the  best  phy- 
sician has  many  more  patients  die  on  his  hands  than 
the  worst  of  his  fellow-practitioners,  you  may  add 
these  two  statements  to  your  bundle  of  paradoxes,  and 
if  they  puzzle  you  I  will  explain  them  at  some  future 
time. 

[I  take  this  opportunity  of  correcting  a  statement 
now  going  the  rounds  of  the  medical  and  probably 
other  periodicals.  In  "  The  Journal  of  the  American 
Medical  Association,"  dated  April  26, 1890,  published 
at  Chicago,  I  am  reported,  in  quotation  marks,  as 
saying,  — 

"  Give  me  opium,  wine,  and  milk,  and  I  will  cure 
all  diseases  to  which  flesh  is  heir." 

In  the  first  place,  I  never  said  I  will  cure,  or  can 
cure,  or  would  or  could  cure,  or  had  cured  any  disease. 
My  venerated  instructor,  Dr.  James  Jackson,  taught 
me  never  to  use  that  expression.  Curo  means,  I  take 
care  of,  he  used  to  say,  and  in  that  sense,  if  you  mean 
nothing  more,  it  is  properly  employed.  So,  in  the 
amphitheatre  of  the  Ecole  de  Me*decine,  I  used  to 
read  the  words  of  Ambroise  Pare,  — "  Je  le  pansay, 
Dieu  le  guarist."  (I  dressed  his  wound,  and  God 
cured  him.)  Next,  I  am  not  in  the  habit  of  talking 
about  "  the  diseases  to  which  flesh  is  heir."  The  ex- 
pression has  become  rather  too  familiar  for  repetition, 
and  belongs  to  the  rhetoric  of  other  latitudes.  And, 
lastly,  I  have  said  some  plain  things,  perhaps  some 


190  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

sharp  ones,  about  the  abuse  of  drugs  and  the  limited 
number  of  vitally  important  remedies,  but  I  am  not  so 
ignorantly  presumptuous  as  to  make  the  foolish  state- 
ment falsely  attributed  to  me.] 

I  paused  a  minute  or  two,  and  as  no  one  spoke  out 
I  put  a  question  to  the  Counsellor. 

Are  you  quite  sure  that  you  wish  to  live  to  be  three- 
score and  twenty  years  old  ? 

"  Most  certainly  I  do.  Don't  they  say  that  Theo- 
phrastus  lived  to -his  hundred  and  seventh  year,  and 
did  n't  he  complain  of  the  shortness  of  life  ?  At  eighty 
a  man  has  had  just  about  time  to  get  warmly  settled 
in  his  nest.  Do  you  suppose  he  doesn't  enjoy  the 
quiet  of  that  resting-place?  No  more  haggard  re- 
sponsibility to  keep  him  awake  nights,  —  unless  he 
prefers  to  retain  his  hold  on  offices  and  duties  from 
which  he  *an  be  excused  if  he  chooses.  No  more  goad- 
ing ambitions,  —  he  knows  he  has  done  his  best.  No 
more  jealousies,  if  he  were  weak  enough  to  feel  such 
ignoble  stirrings  in  his  more  active  season.  An  octo- 
genarian with  a  good  record,  and  free  from  annoying 
or  distressing  infirmities,  ought  to  be  the  happiest  of 
men.  Everybody  treats  him  with  deference.  Every- 
body wants  to  help  him.  He  is  the  ward  of  the  gen- 
erations that  have  grown  up  since  he  was  in  the  vigor 
of  maturity.  Yes,  let  me  live  to  be  fourscore  years, 
and  then  I  will  tell  you  whether  I  should  like  a  few 
more  years  or  not." 

You  carry  the  feelings  of  middle  age,  I  said,  in  im- 
agination, over  into  the  period  of  senility,  and  then 
reason  and  dream  about  it  as  if  its  whole  mode  of  be- 
ing were  like  that  of  the  earlier  period  of  life.  But 
how  many  things  there  are  in  old  age  which  you  must 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  191 

live  into  if  you  would  expect  to  have  any  "  realizing 
sense  "  of  their  significance !  In  the  first  place,  you 
have  n^>  coevals,  or  next  to  none.  At  fifty,  your  vessel 
is  stanch,  and  you  are  on  deck  with  the  rest,  in  all 
weathers.  At  sixty,  the  vessel  still  floats,  and  you  are 
in  the  cabin.  At  seventy,  you,  with  a  few  fellow-pas- 
sengers, are  on  a  raft.  At  eighty,  you  are  on  a  spar, 
to  which,  possibly,  one,  or  two,  or  three  friends  of 
about  your  own  age  are  still  clinging.  After  that, 
you  must  expect  soon  to  find  yourself  alone,  if  you  are 
still  floating,  with  only  a  life-preserver  to  keep  your 
old  white-bearded  chin  above  the  water. 

Kindqgss  ?  Yes,  pitying  kindness,  which  is  a  bitter 
sweet  in  which  the  amiable  ingredient  can  hardly  be 
said  to  predominate.  How  pleasant  do  you  think  it  is 
to  have  an  arm  offered  to  you  when  you  are  walking 
on  a  level  surface,  where  there  h  no  chance  to  trip  ? 
How  agreeable  do  you  suppose  it  is  to  have  your  well- 
meaning  friends  shout  and  screech  at  you,  as  if  you 
were  deaf  as  an  adder,  instead  of  only  being,  as  you 
insist,  somewhat  hard  of  hearing  ?  I  was  a  little  over 
twenty  years  old  when  I  wrote  the  lines  which  some 
of  you  may  have  met  with,  for  they  have  been  often 
reprinted :  — 

The  mossy  marbles  rest 

On  the  lips  that  he  has  prest 
In  their  bloom, 

And  the  names  he  loved  to  hear 

Have  been  carved  for  many  a  year 
On  the  tomb. 

The  world  was  a  garden  to  me  then  ;  it  is  a  churchyard 
now. 

"  I  thought  you  were  one  of  those  who  looked  upon 
old  age  cheerfully,  and  welcomed  it  as  a  season  of 
peace  and  contented  enjoyment." 


192  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

I  am  one  of  those  who  so  regard  it.  Those  are  not 
bitter  or  scalding  tears  that  fall  from  my  eyes  upon 
"  the  mossy  marbles."  The  young  who  left  my  side 
early  in  my  life's  journey  are  still  with  me  in  the  un- 
changed freshness  and  beauty  of  youth.  Those  who 
have  long  kept  company  with  me  live  on  after  their 
seeming  departure,  were  it  only  by  the  mere  force  of 
habit ;  their  images  are  all  around  me,  as  if  every  sur- 
face had  been  a  sensitive  film  that  photographed  them ; 
their  voices  echo  about  me,  as  if  they  had  been  re- 
corded on  those  unforgetting  cylinders  which  bring 
back  to  us  the  tones  and  accents  that  have  imprinted 
them,  as  the  hardened  sands  show  us  the  tracks  of 
extinct  animals.  The  melancholy  of  old  age  has  a 
divine  tenderness  in  it,  which  only  the  sad  experiences 
of  life  can  lend  a  human  soul.  But  there  is  a  lower 
level,  —  that  of  tranquil  contentment  and  easy  acqui- 
escence in  the  conditions  in  which  we  find  ourselves  ; 
a  lower  level,  in  which  old  age  trudges  patiently  when 
it  is  not  using  its  wings.  I  say  its  wings,  for  no  pe- 
riod of  life  is  so  imaginative  as  that  which  looks  to 
younger  people  the  most  prosaic.  The  atmosphere  of 
memory  is  one  in  which  imagination  flies  more  easily 
and  feels  itself  more  at  home  than  in  the  thinner  ether 
of  youthful  anticipation.  I  have  told  you  some  of  the 
drawbacks  of  age ;  I  would  not  have  you  forget  its 
privileges.  When  it  comes  down  from  its  aerial  ex- 
cursions, it  has  much  left  to  enjoy  on  the  humble  plane 
of  being.  And  so  you  think  you  would  like  to  be- 
come an  octogenarian  ? 

"  I  should,"  said  the  Counsellor,  now  a  man  in  the 
high  noon  of  bodily  and  mental  vigor.  "  Four  more 
—  yes,  five  more  —  decades  would  not  be  too  much,  I 
think.  And  how  much  I  should  live  to  see  in  that 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  198 

time  !  I  am  glad  you  have  laid  down  some  rules  by 
which  a  man  may  reasonably  expect  to  leap  the  eight- 
barred  gate.  I  won't  promise  to  obey  them  all 
though." 

Among  the  questions  addressed  to  me,  as  to  a  large 
number  of  other  persons,  are  the  following.  I  take 
them  from  "  The  American  Hebrew "  of  April  4, 
1890.  I  cannot  pretend  to  answer  them  all,  but  I  can 
say  something  about  one  or  two  of  them. 

"  I.  Can  you,  of  your  own  personal  experience,  find 
any  justification  whatever  for  the  entertainment  of 
prejudice  towards  individuals  solely  because  they  are 
Jews? 

"  II.  Is  this  prejudice  not  due  largely  to  the  reli- 
gious instruction  that  is  given  by  the  church  and  Sun- 
day-school ?  For  instance,  the  teachings  that  the  Jews 
crucified  Jesus ;  that  they  rejected  him,  and  can  only 
secure  salvation  by  belief  in  him,  and  similar  matters 
that  are  calculated  to  excite  in  the  impressionable 
mind  of  the  child  an  aversion,  if  not  a  loathing,  for 
members  of  4  the  despised  race.' 

"  III.  Have  you  observed  in  the  social  or  business 
life  of  the  Jew,  so  far  as  your  personal  experience  has 
gone,  any  different  standard  of  conduct  than  prevails 
among  Christians  of  the  same  social  status  ? 
•  "  IV.  Can  you  suggest  what  should  be  done  to  dis- 
pel the  existing  prejudice  ?  " 

As  to  the  first  question,  I  have  had  very  slight  ac- 
quaintance with  the  children  of  Israel.  I  shared  more 
or  less  the  prevailing  prejudices  against  the  persecuted 
race.  I  used  to  read  in  my  hymn-book,  —  I  hope  I 
quote  correctly,  — 

"  See  what  a  living  stone 
The  builders  did  refuse  1 


194  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

Yet  God  has  built  his  church  thereon, 
In  spite  of  envious  Jews." 

I  grew  up  inheriting  the  traditional  idea  that  they 
were  a  race  lying  under  a  curse  for  their  obstinacy  in 
refusing  the  gospel.  Like  other  children  of  New  Eng- 
land birth,  I  walked  in  the  narrow  path  of  Puritan 
exclusiveness.  The  great  historical  church  of  Chris- 
tendom was  presented  to  me  as  Bunyan  depicted  it : 
one  of  the  two  giants  sitting  at  the  door  of  their  caves, 
with  the  bones  of  pilgrims  scattered  about  them,  and 
grinning  at  the  travellers  whom  they  could  no  longer 
devour.  In  the  nurseries  of  old-fashioned  Orthodoxy 
there  was  one  religion  in  the  world,  —  one  religion, 
and  a  multitude  of  detestable,  literally  damnable  im- 
positions, believed  in  by  uncounted  millions,  who  were 
doomed  to  perdition  for  so  believing.  The  Jews  were 
the  believers  in  one  of  these  false  religions.  It  had 
been  true  once,  but  was  now  a  pernicious  and  abomi- 
nable lie.  The  principal  use  of  the  Jews  seemed  to  be 
to  lend  money,  and  to  fulfil  the  predictions  of  the  old 
prophets  of  their  race. 

No  doubt  the  individual  sons  of  Abraham  whom  we 
found  in  our  ill-favored  and  ill-flavored  streets  were 
apt  to  be  unpleasing  specimens  of  the  race.  It  was 
against  the  most  adverse  influences  of  legislation,  of 
religious  feeling,  of  social  repugnance,  that  the  great 
names  of  Jewish  origin  made  themselves  illustrious ; 
that  the  philosophers,  the  musicians,  the  financiers, 
the  statesmen,  of  the  last  centuries  forced  the  world 
to  recognize  and  accept  them.  Benjamin,  the  son  of 
Isaac,  a  son  of  Israel,  as  his  family  name  makes  ob- 
vious, has  shown  how  largely  Jewish  blood  has  been 
represented  in  the  great  men  and  women  of  modern 
days. 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  195 

There  are  two  virtues  which  Christians  have  fouud 
it  very  hard  to  exemplify  in  practice.  These  are  mod- 
esty "u,nd  civility.  The  Founder  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion appeared  among  a  people  accustomed  to  look 
for  a  Messiah,  —  a  special  ambassador  from  heaven, 
with  an  authoritative  message.  They  were  intimately 
acquainted  with  every  expression  having  reference  to 
this  divine  messenger.  They  had  a  religion  of  their 
own,  about  which  Christianity  agrees  with  Judaism  in 
asserting  that  it  was  of  divine  origin.  It  is  a  serious 
fact,  to  which  we  do  not  give  all  the  attention  it  de- 
serves, that  this  divinely  instructed  people  were  not 
satisfied  with  the  evidence  that  the  young  Rabbi  who 
came  to  overthow  their  ancient  church  and  found  a 
new  one  was  a  supernatural  being.  "  We  think  he 
was  a  great  Doctor,"  said  a  Jewish  companion  with 
whom  I  was  conversing.  He  meant  a  great  Teacher, 
I  presume,  though  healing  the  sick  was  one  of  his 
special  offices.  Instead  of  remembering  that  they 
were  entitled  to  form  their  own  judgment  of  the  new 
Teacher,  as  they  had  judged  of  Hillel  and  other  great 
instructors,  Christians,  as  they  called  themselves,  have 
insulted,  calumniated,  oppressed,  abased,  outraged, 
"  the  chosen  race  "  during  the  long  succession  of  cen- 
turies since  the  Jewish  contemporaries  of  the  Founder 
of  Christianity  made  up  their  minds  that  he  did  not 
meet  the  conditions  required  by  the  subject  of  the  pre- 
dictions of  their  Scriptures.  The  course  of  the  argu- 
ment against  them  is  very  briefly  and  effectively  stated 
by  Mr.  Emerson  :  — 

"  This  was  Jehovah  come  down  out  of  heaven.  I 
will  kill  you  if  you  say  he  was  a  man." 

It  seems  as  if  there  should  be  certain  laws  of  eti- 
quette regulating  the  relation  of  different  religions  to 


196  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

each  other.  It  is  not  civil  for  a  follower  of  Mahomet 
to  call  his  neighbor  of  another  creed  a  "Christian 
dog."  Still  more,  there  should  be  something  like  po- 
liteness in  the  bearing  of  Christian  sects  toward  each 
other,  and  of  believers  in  the  new  dispensation  toward 
those  who  still  adhere  to  the  old.  We  are  in  the  habit 
of  allowing  a  certain  arrogant  assumption  to  our  Ro- 
man Catholic  brethren.  We  have  got  used  to  their 
pretensions.  They  may  call  us  "  heretics,"  if  they 
like.  They  may  speak  of  us  as  "  infidels,"  if  they 
choose,  especially  if  they  say  it  in  Latin.  So  long  as 
there  is  no  inquisition,  so  long  as  there  is  no  auto  da 
f£,  we  do  not  mind  the  hard  words  much ;  and  we 
have  as  good  phrases  to  give  them  back  :  the  Man  of 
Sin  and  the  Scarlet  Woman  will  serve  for  examples. 
But  it  is  better  to  be  civil  to  each  other  all  round.  I 
doubt  if  a  convert  to  the  religion  of  Mahomet  was 
ever  made  by  calling  a  man  a  Christian  dog.  I  doubt 
if  a  Hebrew  ever  became  a  good  Christian  if  the  bap- 
tismal rite  was  performed  by  spitting  on  his  Jewish 
gabardine.  I  have  often  thought  of  the  advance  in 
comity  and  true  charity  shown  in  the  title  of  my  late 
honored  friend  James  Freeman  Clarke's  book,  "  The 
Ten  Great  Religions."  If  the  creeds  of  mankind  try 
to  understand  each  other  before  attempting  mutual 
extermination,  they  will  be  sure  to  find  a  meaning  in 
beliefs  which  are  different  from  their  own.  The 
old  Calvinistic  spirit  was  almost  savagely  exclusive. 
While  the  author  of  the  "  Ten  Great  Religions  "  was 
growing  up  in  Boston  under  the  benignant,  large- 
minded  teachings  of  the  Rev.  James  Freeman,  the  fa- 
mous Dr.  John  M.  Mason,  at  New  York,  was  fiercely 
attacking  the  noble  humanity  of  "  The  Universal 
Prayer."  "  In  preaching,"  says  his  biographer,  "  he 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  197 

once  quoted  Pope's  lines  as  to  God's  being  adored 
alike  '  by  saint,  by  savage,  and  by  sage,'  and  pro- 
nounced it  (in  his  deepest  guttural)  '  the  most  damna- 
ble lie.' " 

What  could  the  Hebrew  expect  when  a  Christian 
preacher  could  use  such  language  about  a  petition 
breathing  the  very  soul  of  humanity?  Happily,  the 
true  human  spirit  is  encroaching  on  that  arrogant  and 
narrow-minded  form  of  selfishness  which  called  itself 
Christianity. 

The  golden  rule  should  govern  us  in  dealing  with 
those  whom  we  call  unbelievers,  with  heathen,  and 
with  all  who  do  not  accept  our  religious  views.  The 
Jews  are  with  us  as  a  perpetual  lesson  to  teach  us 
modesty  and  civility.  The  religion  we  profess  is  not 
self-evident.  It  did  not  convince  the  people  to  whom 
it  was  sent.  We  have  no  claim  to  take  it  for  granted 
that  we  are  all  right,  and  they  are  all  wrong.  And, 
therefore,  in  the  midst  of  all  the  triumphs  of  Christi- 
anity, it  is  well  that  the  stately  synagogue  should  lift 
its  walls  by  the  side  of  the  aspiring  cathedral,  a  per- 
petual reminder  that  there  are  many  mansions  in  the 
Father's  earthly  house  as  well  as  in  the  heavenly  one ; 
that  civilized  humanity,  longer  in  time  and  broader  in 
space  than  any  historical  form  of  belief,  is  mightier 
than  any  one  institution  or  organization  it  includes. 

Many  years  ago  I  argued  with  myself  the  proposi- 
tion which  my  Hebrew  correspondent  has  suggested. 
Recogniziug  the  fact  that  I  was  born  to  a  birthright 
of  national  and  social  prejudices  against  "  the  chosen 
people,"  —  chosen  as  the  object  of  contumely  and 
abuse  by  the  rest  of  the  world,  —  I  pictured  my  own 
inherited  feelings  of  aversion  in  all  their  intensity, 
and  the  strain  of  thought  under  the  influence  of  which 


198  OVER   THE  TEACUPS. 

those  prejudices  gave  way  to  a  more  human,  a  more 
truly  Christian  feeling  of  brotherhood.  I  must  ask 
your  indulgence  while  I  quote  a  few  verses  from  a 
poem  of  my  own,  printed  long  ago  under  the  title  "  At 
the  Pantomime." 

I  was  crowded  between  two  children  of  Israel,  and 
gave  free  inward  expression  to  my  feelings.  All  at 
once  I  happened  to  look  more  closely  at  one  of  my 
neighbors,  and  saw  that  the  youth  was  the  very  ideal 
of  the  Son  of  Mary. 

A  fresh  young  cheek  whose  olive  hue 
The  mantling  blood  shows  faintly  through; 
Locks  dark  as  midnight,  that  divide 
And  shade  the  neck  on  either  side ; 
Soft,  gentle,  loving  eyes  that  gleam 
Clear  as  a  starlit  mountain  stream  ; 
So  looked  that  other  child  of  Shem, 
The  Maiden's  Boy  of  Bethlehem  ! 

—  And  thou  couldst  scorn  the  peerless  blood 
That  flows  unmingled  from  the  Flood,  — 
Thy  scutcheon  spotted  with  the  stains 
Of  Norman  thieves  and  pirate  Danes  ! 
The  New  World's  foundling,  in  thy  pride 
Scowl  on  the  Hebrew  at  thy  side, 
And  lo  !  the  very  semblance  there 
The  Lord  of  Glory  deigned  to  wear  ! 

I  see  that  radiant  image  rise, 
The  flowing  hair,  the  pitying  eyes, 
The  faintly  crimsoned  cheek  that  shows 
The  blush  of  Sharon's  opening  rose,  — 
Thy  hands  would  clasp  his  hallowed  feet 
Whose  brethren  soil  thy  Christian  seat, 
Thy  lips  would  press  his  garment's  hem 
That  curl  in  wrathful  scorn  for  them  ! 

A  sudden  mist,  a  watery  screen, 
Dropped  like  a  veil  before  the  scene  ; 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  199 

The  shadow  floated  from  my  soul, 
And  to  my  lips  a  whisper  stole  :  — 
"  Thy  prophets  caught  the  Spirit's  flame, 
From  thee  the  Son  of  Mary  came, 
With  thee  the  Father  deigned  to  dwell,  «-- 
Peace  be  upon  thee,  Israel ! " 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  intimate  relations  will 
be  established  between  Jewish  and  Christian  commu- 
nities until  both  become  so  far  rationalized  and  hu- 
manized that  their  differences  are  comparatively 
unimportant.  But  already  there  is  an  evident  ap- 
proximation in  the  extreme  left  of  what  is  called  lib- 
eral Christianity  and  the  representatives  of  modern 
Judaism.  The  life  of  a  man  like  the  late  Sir  Moses 
Montefiore  reads  a  lesson  from  the  Old  Testament 
which  might  well  have  been  inspired  by  the  noblest 
teachings  of  the  Christian  Gospels. 

Delilah,  and  how  she  got  her  name. 

i 

Est-elle  bien  gentille,  cette  petite  ?  I  said  one  day 
to  Number  Five,  as  our  pretty  Delilah  put  her  arm 
between  us  with  a  bunch  of  those  tender  early  rad- 
ishes that  so  recall  the  poSoSaxrvXcs  'Hws,  the  rosy-fin- 
gered morning  of  Homer.  The  little  hand  which 
held  the  radishes  would  not  have  shamed  Aurora. 
That  hand  has  never  known  drudgery,  I  feel  sure. 

When  I  spoke  those  French  words  our  little  Deli- 
lah gave  a  slight,  seemingly  involuntary  start,  and  her 
cheeks  grew  of  as  bright  a  red  as  her  radishes.  Ah, 
said  I  to  myself,  does  that  young  girl  understand 
French  ?  It  may  be  worth  while  to  be  careful  what 
one  says  before  her. 

There  is  a  mystery  about  this  girl.  She  seems  to 
know  her  place  perfectly,  —  except,  perhaps,  when 


200  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

she  burst  out  crying,  the  other  day,  which  was  against 
all  the  rules  of  table-maiden's  etiquette,  —  and  yet  she 
looks  as  if  she  had  been  born  to  be  waited  on,  and 
not  to  perform  that  humble  service  for  others.  We 
know  that  once  in  a  while  girls  with  education  and 
well  connected  take  it  into  their  heads  to  go  into  ser- 
vice for  a  few  weeks  or  months.  Sometimes  it  is  from, 
economic  motives,  —  to  procure  means  for  their  edu- 
cation, or  to  help  members  of  their  families  who  need 
assistance.  At  any  rate,  they  undertake  the  lighter 
menial  duties  of  some  household  where  they  are  not 
known,  and,  having  stooped  —  if  stooping  it  is  to  be 
considered  —  to  lowly  offices,  no  born  and  bred  ser- 
vants are  more  faithful  to  all  their  obligations.  You 
must  not  suppose  she  was  christened  Delilah.  Any 
of  our  ministers  would  hesitate  to  give  such  a  heathen 
name  to  a  Christian  child. 

The  way  she  came  to  get  it  was  this  :  The  Professor 
was  going  to  give  a  lecture  before  an  occasional  audi- 
ence, one  evening.  When  he  took  his  seat  with  the 
other  Teacups,  the  American  Annex  whispered  to  the 
other  Annex,  "  His  hair  wants  cutting,  —  it  looks  like 
fury."  "Quite  so,"  said  the  English  Annex.  "I 
wish  you  would  tell  him  so,  —  I  do,  awfully."  "  I  '11 
fix  it,"  said  the  American  girl.  So,  after  the  teacups 
were  emptied  and  the  company  had  left  the  table,  she 
went  up  to  the  Professor.  "  You  read  this  lecture, 
don't  you,  Professor  ? "  she  said.  "  I  do,"  he  an- 
swered. "  I  should  think  that  lock  of  hair  which  falls 
down  over  your  forehead  would  trouble  you,"  she 
said.  "  It  does  sometimes,"  replied  the  Professor. 
"  Let  our  little  maid  trim  it  for  you.  You  're  equal 
to  that,  aren't  you?"  turning  to  the  handmaiden. 
"  I  always  used  to  cut  my  father's  hair,"  she  answered. 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  201 

She  brought  a  pair  of  glittering  shears,  and  before 
she  would  let  the  Professor  go  she  had  trimmed  his 
hair  a,nd  beard  as  they  had  not  been  dealt  with  for 
many  a  day.  Everybody  said  the  Professor  looked 
ten  years  younger.  After  that  our  little  handmaiden 
was  always  called  Delilah,  among  the  talking  Teacups. 

The  Mistress  keeps  a  watchful  eye  on  this  young 
girl.  I  should  not  be  surprised  to  find  that  she  was 
carrying  out  some  ideal,  some  fancy  or  whim,  —  pos- 
sibly nothing  more,  but  springing  from  some  gener- 
ous, youthful  impulse.  Perhaps  she  is  working  for 
that  little  sister  at  the  Blind  Asylum.  Where  did  she 
learn  French  ?  She  did  certainly  blush,  and  betrayed 
every  sign  of  understanding  the  words  spoken  about 
her  in  that  language.  Sometimes  she  sings  while  at 
her  work,  and  we  have  all  been  struck  with  the  pure, 
musical  character  of  her  voice.  It  is  just  such  a  voice 
as  ought  to  come  from  that  round  white  throat.  We 
made  a  discovery  about  it  the  other  evening. 

The  Mistress  keeps  a  piano  in  her  room,  and  we 
have  sometimes  had  music  in  the  evening.  One  of 
The  Teacups,  to  whom  I  have  slightly  referred,  is  an 
accomplished  pianist,  and  the  two  Annexes  sing  very 
sweetly  together,  —  the  American  girl  having  a  clear 
soprano  voice,  the  English  girl  a  mellow  contralto. 
They  had  sung  several  tunes,  when  the  Mistress  rang 
for  Avis,  —  for  that  is  our  Delilah's  real  name.  She 
whispered  to  the  young  girl,  who  blushed  and  trem- 
bled. "  Don't  be  frightened,"  said  the  Mistress  en- 
couragingly. "  I  have  heard  you  singing  '  Too  Young 
for  Love,'  and  I  will  get  our  pianist  to  play  it.  The 
young  ladies  both  know  it,  and  you  must  join  in." 

The  two  voices,  with  the  accompaniment,  had  hardly 
finished  the  first  line  when  a  pure,  ringing,  almost 


202  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

childlike  voice  joined  the  vocal  duet.  The  sound  of 
her  own  voice  seemed  to  make  her  forget  her  fears, 
and  she  warbled  as  naturally  and  freely  as  any  young 
bird  of  a  May  morning.  Number  Five  came  in  while 
she  was  singing,  and  when  she  got  through  caught  her 
in  her  arms  and  kissed  her,  as  if  she  were  her  sister, 
and  not  Delilah,  our  table-maid.  Number  Five  is  apt 
to  forget  herself  and  those  social  differences  to  which 
some  of  us  attach  so  much  importance.  This  is  the 
gong  in  which  the  little  maid  took  part :  — 

TOO  YOUNG  FOR  LOVE. 

Too  young  for  love  ? 

Ah,  say  not  so  ! 

Tell  reddening  rose-buds  not  to  blow ! 
Wait  not  for  spring  to  pass  away,  — 
Love's  summer  mouths  begin  with  May  ! 

Too  young  for  love  ? 

Ah,  say  not  so  ! 

Too  young  ?  Too  young  ? 

Ah,  no  !  no  J  no  ! 

Too  young  for  love  ? 

Ah,  say  not  so, 

While  daisies  bloom  and  tulips  glow ! 
June  soon  will  come  with  lengthened  day 
To  practise  all  love  learned  in  May. 

Too  young  for  love  ? 

Ah,  say  not  so  ! 

Too  young  ?  Too  young  ? 

Ah,  no  !  no  !  no  ! 


rx. 


I  OFTEN  wish  that  our  Number  Seven  could  have 
known  and  corresponded  with  the  author  of  "  The 
Budget  of  Paradoxes."  I  think  Mr.  De  Morgan  would 
have  found  some  of  his  vagaries  and  fancies  not  un- 
deserving of  a  place  in  his  wonderful  collection  of  ec- 
centricities, absurdities,  ingenuities,  —  mental  freaks 
of  all  sorts.  But  I  think  he  would  have  now  and  then 
recognized  a  sound  idea,  a  just  comparison,  a  sugges- 
tive hint,  a  practical  notion,  which  redeemed  a  page  of 
extravagances  and  crotchety  whims.  I  confess  that  I 
am  often  pleased  with  fancies  of  his,  and  should  be 
willing  to  adopt  them  as  my  own.  I  think  he  has,  in 
the  midst  of  his  erratic  and  tangled  conceptions,  some 
perfectly  clear  and  consistent  trains  of  thought. 

So  when  Number  Seven  spoke  of  sending  us  a  paper, 
I  welcomed  the  suggestion.  I  asked  him  whether  he 
had  any  objection  to  my  looking  it  over  before  he  read 
it.  My  proposal  rather  pleased  him,  I  thought,  for, 
as  was  observed  on  a  former  occasion,  he  has  in  con- 
nection with  a  belief  in  himself  another  side, — a  curi- 
ous self-distrust.  I  have  no  question  that  he  has  an 
obscure  sense  of  some  mental  deficiency.  Thus  you 
may  expect  from  him  first  a  dogma,  and  presently  a 
doubt.  If  you  fight  his  dogma,  he  will  do  battle  for 
it  stoutly  ;  if  you  let  him  alone,  he  will  very  probably 
explain  its  extravagances,  if  it  has  any,  and  tame  it 
into  reasonable  limits.  Sometimes  he  is  in  one  mood, 
sometimes  in  another. 


204  OVEE  THE  TEACUPS. 

The  first  portion  of  what  we  listened  to  shows  him 
at  his  best ;  in  the  latter  part  I  am  afraid  you  will 
think  he  gets  a  little  wild. 

I  proceed  to  lay  before  you  the  paper  which  Num- 
ber Seven  read  to  The  Teacups.  There  was  something 
very  pleasing  in  the  deference  which  was  shown  hini« 
We  all  feel  that  there  is  a  crack  in  the  teacup,  and 
are  disposed  to  handle  it  carefully.  I  have  left  out  a 
few  things  which  he  said,  feeling  that  they  might  give 
offence  to  some  of  the  company.  There  were  sen- 
tences so  involved  and  obscure  that  I  was  sure  they 
would  not  be  understood,  if  indeed  he  understood  them 
himself.  But  there  are  other  passages  so  entirely 
sane,  and  as  it  seems  to  me  so  just,  that  if  any  reader 
attributes  them  to  me  I  shall  not  think  myself  wronged 
by  the  supposition.  You  must  remember  that  Num- 
ber Seven  has  had  a  fair  education,  that  he  has  been 
a  wide  reader  in  many  directions,  and  that  he  belongs 
to  a  family  of  remarkable  intellectual  gifts.  So  it  was 
not  surprising  that  he  said  some  things  which  pleased 
the  company,  as  in  fact  they  did.  The  reader  will  not 
be  startled  to  see  a  certain  abruptness  in  the  transition 
from  one  subject  to  another,  —  it  is  a  characteristic  of 
the  squinting  brain  wherever  you  find  it.  Another 
curious  mark  rarely  wanting  in  the  subjects  of  mental 
strabismus  is  an  irregular  and  often  sprawling  and  de- 
formed handwriting.  Many  and  many  a  time  I  have 
said,  after  glancing  at  the  back  of  a  letter,  "This 
comes  from  an  insane  asylum,  or  from  an  eccentric 
who  might  well  be  a  candidate  for  such  an  institu- 
tion." Number  Seven's  manuscript,  which  showed 
marks  of  my  corrections  here  and  there,  furnished 
good  examples  of  the  chirography  of  persons  with  ill- 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  205 

mated  cerebral  hemispheres.     But  the  earlier  portions 
of  the  manuscript  are  of  perfectly  normal  appearance. 

Cbsiticuere  omnes,  as  Virgil  says.  We  were  all 
silent  as  Number  Seven  began  the  reading  of  his 
paper. 

Number  Seven  reads. 

I  am  the  seventh  son  of  a  seventh  son,  as  I  suppose 
you  all  know.  It  is  commonly  believed  that  some 
extraordinary  gifts  belong  to  the  fortunate  individuals 
born  under  these  exceptional  conditions.  However 
this  may  be,  a  peculiar  virtue  was  supposed  to  dwell 
in  me  from  my  earliest  years.  My  touch  was  believed 
to  have  the  influence  formerly  attributed  to  that  of 
the  kings  and  queens  of  England.  You  may  remem- 
ber that  the  great  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  when  a  child, 
was  carried  to  be  touched  by  her  Majesty  Queen  Anne 
for  the  "  king's  evil,"  as  scrofula  used  to  be  called. 
Our  honored  friend  The  Dictator  will  tell  you  that 
the  brother  of  one  of  his  Andover  schoolmates  was 
taken  to  one  of  these  gifted  persons,  who  touched 
him,  and  hung  a  small  bright  silver  coin,  either  a 
"  fourpence  ha'penny  "  or  a  "  ninepence,"  about  his 
neck,  which,  strange  to  say,  after  being  worn  a  certain 
time,  became  tarnished,  and  finally  black,  —  a  proof 
of  the  poisonous  matters  which  had  become  eliminated 
from  the  system  and  gathered  upon  the  coin.  I  re- 
member that  at  one  time  I  used  to  carry  fourpence 
ha'pennies  with  holes  bored  through  them,  which  I 
furnished  to  children  or  to  their  mothers,  under 
pledges  of  secrecy,  —  receiving  a  piece  of  silver  of 
larger  dimensions  in  exchange.  I  never  felt  quite 
sure  about  any  extraordinary  endowment  being  a  part 
of  my  inheritance  in  virtue  of  my  special  conditions 
of  birth.  A  phrenologist,  who  examined  my  head 


206  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

when  I  was  a  boy,  said  the  two  sides  were  unlike. 
My  hatter's  measurement  told  me  the  same  thing ; 
but  in  looking  over  more  than  a  bushel  of  the  small 
cardboard  hat-patterns  which  give  the  exact  shape  of 
the  head,  I  have  found  this  is  not  uncommon.  The 
phrenologist  made  all  sorts  of  predictions  of  what  I 
should  be  and  do,  which  proved  about  as  near  the 
truth  as  those  recorded  in  Miss  Edith  Thomas's 
charming  little  poem,  "  Augury,"  which  some  of  us 
were  reading  the  other  day. 

I  have  never  been  through  college,  but  I  had  a  rela- 
tive who  was  famous  as  a  teacher  of  rhetoric  in  one  of 
our  universities,  and  especially  for  taking  the  non- 
sense out  of  sophomorical  young  fellows  who  could 
not  say  anything  without  rigging  it  up  in  showy  and 
sounding  phrases.  I  think  I  learned  from  him  to  ex- 
press myself  in  good  old-fashioned  English,  and  with- 
out making  as  much  fuss  about  it  as  our  Fourth  of 
July  orators  and  political  haranguers  were  in  the 
habit  of  making. 

I  read  a  good  many  stories  during  my  boyhood,  one 
of  which  left  a  lasting  impression  upon  me,  and  which 
I  have  always  commended  to  young  people.  It  is  too 
late,  generally,  to  try  to  teach  old  people,  yet  one  may 
profit  by  it  at  any  period  of  life  before  the  sight  has 
become  too  dim  to  be  of  any  use.  The  story  I  refer 
to  is  in  "  Evenings  at  Home,"  and  is  called  "  Eyes  and 
No  Eyes."  I  ought  to  have  it  by  me,  but  it  is  con- 
stantly happening  that  the  best  old  things  get  over- 
laid by  the  newest  trash ;  and  though  I  have  never 
seen  anything  of  the  kind  half  so  good,  my  table  and 
shelves  are  cracking  with  the  weight  of  involuntary 
accessions  to  my  library. 

This  is  the  story  as  I  remember  it :  Two  children 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  207 

walk  out,  and  are  questioned  when  they  coine  home. 
One  has  found  nothing  to  observe,  nothing  to  admire, 
nothing  to  describe,  nothing  to  ask  questions  about. 
The  other  has  found  everywhere  objects  of  curiosity 
and  interest.  I  advise  you,  if  you  are  a  child  any- 
where under  forty-five,  and  do  not  yet  wear  glasses, 
to  send  at  once  for  "  Evenings  at  Home  "  and  read 
that  story.  For  myself,  I  am  always  grateful  to  the 
writer  of  it  for  calling  my  attention  to  common  things. 
How  many  people  have  been  waked  to  a  quicker  con- 
sciousness of  life  by  Wordsworth's  simple  lines  about 
the  daffodils,  and  what  he  says  of  the  thoughts  sug- 
gested to  him  by  "  the  meanest  flower  that  blows  "  ! 

I  was  driving  with  a  friend,  the  other  day,  through 
a  somewhat  dreary  stretch  of  country,  where  there 
seemed  to  be  very  little  to  attract  notice  or  deserve 
remark.  Still,  the  old  spirit  infused  by  "  Eyes  and 
No  Eyes  "  was  upon  me,  and  I  looked  for  something 
to  fasten  my  thought  upon,  and  treat  as  an  artist 
treats  a  study  for  a  picture.  The  first  object  to  which 
my  eyes  were  drawn  was  an  old-fashioned  well-sweep. 
It  did  not  take  much  imaginative  sensibility  to  be 
stirred  by  the  sight  of  this  most  useful,  most  ancient, 
most  picturesque,  of  domestic  conveniences.  I  know 
something  of  the  shadoof  of  Egypt,  —  the  same  ar- 
rangement by  which  the  sacred  waters  of  the  Nile 
have  been  lifted,  from  the  days  of  the  Pharaohs  to 
those  of  the  Khedives.  That  long  forefinger  pointing 
to  heaven  was  a  symbol  which  spoke  to  the  Puritan 
exile  as  it  spoke  of  old  to  the  enslaved  Israelite.  Was 
there  ever  any  such  water  as  that  which  we  used  to 
draw  from  the  deep,  cold  well,  in  "  the  old  oaken 
bucket "  ?  What  memories  gather  about  the  well  in 
all  ages  !  What  love-matches  have  been  made  at  its 


208  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

margin,  from  the  times  of  Jacob  and  Rachel  down- 
ward  !  What  fairy  legends  hover  over  it,  what  fear- 
ful mysteries  has  it  hidden !  The  beautiful  well- 
sweep  !  It  is  too  rarely  that  we  see  it,  and  as  it  dies 
out  and  gives  place  to  the  odiously  convenient  pump, 
with  the  last  patent  on  its  cast-iron  uninterestingness, 
does  it  not  seem  as  if  the  farmyard  aspect  had  lost 
half  its  attraction  ?  So  long  as  the  dairy  farm  exists, 
doubtless  there  must  be  every  facility  for  getting 
water  in  abundance ;  but  the  loss  of  the  well-sweep 
cannot  be  made  up  to  us  even  if  our  milk  were  diluted 
to  twice  its  present  attenuation. 

The  well-sweep  had  served  its  turn,  and  my  com- 
panion and  I  relapsed  into  silence.  After  a  while  we 
passed  another  farmyard,  with  nothing  which  seemed 
deserving  of  remark  except  the  wreck  of  an  old 
wagon. 

"  Look,"  I  said,  "  if  you  want  to  see  one  of  the 
greatest  of  all  the  triumphs  of  human  ingenuity,  — 
one  of  the  most  beautiful,  as  it  is  one  of  the  most  use- 
ful, of  all  the  mechanisms  which  the  intelligence  of 
successive  ages  has  called  into  being." 

"  I  see  nothing,"  my  companion  answered,  "  but  an 
old  broken-down  wagon.  Why  they  leave  such  a 
piece  of  lumbering  trash  about  their  place,  where  peo- 
ple can  see  it  as  they  pass,  is  more  than  I  can  account 
for." 

"  And  yet,"  said  I,  "  there  is  one  of  the  most  ex- 
traordinary products  of  human  genius  and  skill,  —  an 
object  which  combines  the  useful  and  the  beautiful  to 
an  extent  which  hardly  any  simple  form  of  mechanism 
can  pretend  to  rival.  Do  you  notice  how,  while  every- 
thing else  has  gone  to  smash,  that  wheel  remains  sound 
and  fit  for  service  ?  Look  at  it  merely  for  its  beauty. 


OVER  THE   TEACUPS.  209 

See  the  perfect  circles,  the  outer  and  the  inner.  A 
circle  is  in  itself  a  consummate  wonder  of  geometrical 
symmetry.  It  is  the  line  in  which  the  omnipotent  en- 
ergy delights  to  move.  There  is  no  fault  in  it  to  be 
amended.  The  first  drawn  circle  and  the  last  both 
embody  the  same  complete  fulfillment  of  a  perfect  de= 
sign.  Then  look  at  the  rays  which  pass  from  the  in- 
ner to  the  outer  circle.  How  beautifully  they  bring 
the  greater  and  lesser  circles  into  connection  with  each 
other !  The  flowers  know  that  secret,  —  the  margue- 
rite in  the  meadow  displays  it  as  clearly  as  the  great 
sun  in  heaven.  How  beautiful  is  this  flower  of  wood 
and  iron,  which  we  were  ready  to  pass  by  without 
wasting  a  look  upon  it !  But  its  beauty  is  only  the 
beginning  of  its  wonderful  claim  upon  us  for  our 
admiration.  Look  at  that  field  of  flowering  grass, 
the  triticum  vulgare,  —  see  how  its  waves  follow  the 
breeze  in  satiny  alternations  of  light  and  shadow. 
You  admire  it  for  its  lovely  aspect ;  but  when  you  re- 
member that  this  flowering  grass  is  wheat,  the  finest 
food  of  the  highest  human  races,  it  gains  a  dignity,  a 
glory,  that  its  beauty  alone  could  not  give  it. 

"  Now  look  at  that  exquisite  structure  lying  neg- 
lected and  disgraced,  but  essentially  unchanged  in  its 
perfection,  before  you.  That  slight  and  delicate- 
looking  fabric  has  stood  such  a  trial  as  hardly  any 
slender  contrivance,  excepting  always  the  valves  of 
the  heart,  was  ever  subjected  to.  It  has  rattled  for 
years  over  the  cobble-stones  of  a  rough  city  pavement, 
It  has  climbed  over  all  the  accidental  obstructions  it 
met  in  the  highway,  and  dropped  into  all  the  holes 
and  deep  ruts  that  made  the  heavy  farmer  sitting  over 
it  use  his  Sunday  vocabulary  in  a  week-day  form  of 
speech.  At  one  time  or  another,  almost  every  part  of 


210  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

that  old  wagon  has  given  way.  It  has  had  two  new 
pairs  of  shafts.  Twice  the  axle  has  broken  off  close 
to  the  hub,  or  nave.  The  seat  broke  when  Zekle  and 
Huldy  were  having  what  they  called  '  a  ride  '  together. 
The  front  was  kicked  in  by  a  vicious  mare.  The 
springs  gave  way  and  the  floor  bumped  on  the  axle. 
Every  portion  of  the  wagon  became  a  prey  of  its  spe- 
cial accident,  except  that  most  fragile  looking  of  all 
its  parts,  the  wheel.  Who  can  help  admiring  the  ex- 
act distribution  of  the  power  of  resistance  at  the  least 
possible  expenditure  of  material  which  is  manifested 
in  this  wondrous  triumph  of  human  genius  and  skill  ? 
The  spokes  are  planted  in  the  solid  hub  as  strongly  as 
the  jaw-teeth  of  a  lion  in  their  deep-sunken  sockets. 
Each  spoke  has  its  own  territory  in  the  circumference, 
for  which  it  is  responsible.  According  to  the  load  the 
vehicle  is  expected  to  carry,  they  are  few  or  many, 
stout  or  slender,  but  they  share  their  joint  labor  with 
absolute  justice,  —  not  one  does  more,  not  one  does 
less,  than  its  just  proportion.  The  outer  end  of  the 
spokes  is  received  into  the  deep  mortise  of  the  wooden 
fellies,  and  the  structure  appears  to  be  complete.  But 
how  long  would  it  take  to  turn  that  circle  into  a  poly- 
gon, unless  some  mighty  counteracting  force  should 
prevent  it  ?  See  the  iron  tire  brought  hot  from  the 
furnace  and  laid  around  the  smoking  circumference. 
Once  in  place,  the  workman  cools  the  hot  iron ;  and  as 
it  shrinks  with  a  force  that  seems  like  a  hand-grasp  of 
the  Omnipotent,  it  clasps  the  fitted  fragments  of  the 
structure,  and  compresses  them  into  a  single  insepara- 
ble whole. 

"  Was  it  not  worth  our  while  to  stop  a  moment  be- 
fore passing  that  old  broken  wagon,  and  see  whether 
we  could  not  find  as  much  in  it  as  Swift  found  in  his 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  211 

*  Meditations  on  a  Broomstick '  ?  I  have  been  laughed 
at  for  making  so  much  of  such  a  common  thing  as  a 
wheel.  Idiots !  Solomon's  court  fool  would  have 
scoffed  at  the  thought  of  the  young  Galilean  who 
dared  compare  the  lilies  of  the  field  to  his  august  mas- 
ter. Nil  admirari  is  very  well  for  a  North  American 
Indian  and  his  degenerate  successor,  who  has  grown 
too  grand  to  admire  anything  but  himself,  and  takes  a 
cynical  pride  in  his  stolid  indifference  to  everything 
worth  reverencing  or  honoring." 

After  calling  my  companion's  attention  to  the 
wheel,  and  discoursing  upon  it  until  I  thought  he  was 
getting  sleepy,  we  jogged  along  until  we  came  to  a 
running  stream.  It  was  crossed  by  a  stone  bridge  of 
a  single  arch.  There  are  very  few  stone  arches  over 
the  streams  in  New  England  country  towns,  and  I 
always  delighted  in  this  one.  It  was  built  in  the  last 
century,  amidst  the  doubting  predictions  of  staring 
rustics,  and  stands  to-day  as  strong  as  ever,  and  seem- 
ingly good  for  centuries  to  come. 

"  See  there !  "  said  I,  —  "  there  is  another  of  my 
'  Eyes  and  No  Eyes '  subjects  to  meditate  upon.  Next 
to  the  wheel,  the  arch  is  the  noblest  of  those  elemen- 
tary mechanical  composites,  corresponding  to  the  prox- 
imate principles  of  chemistry.  The  beauty  of  the  arch 
consists  first  in  its  curve,  commonly  a  part  of  the  cir- 
cle, of  the  perfection  of  which  I  have  spoken.  But 
the  mind  derives  another  distinct  pleasure  from  the 
admirable  manner  in  which  the  several  parts,  each  dif- 
ferent from  all  the  others,  contribute  to  a  single  har- 
monious effect.  It  is  a  typical  example  of  the  piu  ncl 
uno.  An  arch  cut  out  oi'  a  single  stone  would  not  be 
so  beautiful  as  one  of  which  each  individual  stone  was 
shaped  for  its  exact  position ,  Its  completion  by  the 


212  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

locking  of  the  keystone  is  a  delight  to  witness  and  to 
contemplate.  And  how  the  arch  endures,  when  its 
lateral  thrust  is  met  by  solid  masses  of  resistance  !  In 
one  of  the  great  temples  of  Baalbec  a  keystone  has 
slipped,  but  how  rare  is  that  occurrence !  One  will 
hardly  find  another  such  example  among  all  the  ruins 
of  antiquity.  Yes,  I  never  get  tired  of  arches.  They 
are  noble  when  shaped  of  solid  marble  blocks,  each 
carefully  beveled  for  its  position.  They  are  beautiful 
when  constructed  with  the  large  thin  tiles  the  Romans 
were  so  fond  of  using.  I  noticed  some  arches  built 
in  this  way  in  the  wall  of  one  of  the  grand  houses  just 
going  up  on  the  bank  of  the  river.  They  were  over 
the  capstones  of  the  windows,  —  to  take  off  the  pres- 
sure from  them,  no  doubt,  for  now  and  then  a  cap- 
stone will  crack  under  the  weight  of  the  superincum- 
bent mass.  How  close  they  fit,  and  how  striking  the 
effect  of  their  long  radiations  !  " 

The  company  listened  very  well  up  to  this  point. 
When  he  began  the  strain  of  thoughts  which  follows, 
a  curious  look  went  round  The  Teacups. 

What  a  strange  underground  life  is  that  which  is 
led  by  the  organisms  we  call  trees  !  These  great  flut- 
tering masses  of  leaves,  stems,  boughs,  trunks,  are  not 
the  real  trees.  They  live  underground,  and  what  we 
see  are  nothing  more  nor  less  than  their  tails. 

The  Mistress  dropped  her  teaspoon.  Number  Five 
looked  at  the  Doctor,  whose  face  was  very  still  and 
sober.  The  two  Annexes  giggled,  or  came  very  near  it. 

Yes,  a  tree   is   an  underground  creature,  with  its 


OVER   THE   TEACUPS.  213 

tail  iii  the  air.  All  its  intelligence  is  in  its  roots.  All 
the  senses  it  has  are  in  its  roots.  Think  what  sagacity 
it  shows  in  its  search  after  food  and  drink !  Somehow 
or  other,  the  rootlets,  which  are  its  tentacles,  find  out 
that  there  is  a  brook  at  a  moderate  distance  from  the 
trunk  of  the  tree,  and  they  make  for  it  with  all  their 
might.  They  find  every  crack  in  the  rocks  where  there 
are  a  few  grains  of  the  nourishing  substance  they  care 
for,  and  insinuate  themselves  into  its  deepest  recesses. 
When  spring  and  summer  come,  they  let  their  tails 
grow,  and  delight  in  whisking  them  about  in  the  wind, 
or  letting  them  be  whisked  about  by  it ;  for  these  tails 
are  poor  passive  things,  with  very  little  will  of  their 
own,  and  bend  in  whatever  direction  the  wind  chooses 
to  make  them.  The  leaves  make  a  deal  of  noise  whis- 
pering. I  have  sometimes  thought  I  could  understand 
them,  as  they  talk  with  each  other,  and  that  they  seemed 
to  think  they  made  the  wind  as  they  wagged  forward 
and  back.  Remember  what  I  say.  The  next  time 
you  see  a  tree  waving  in  the  wind,  recollect  that  it  is 
the  tail  of  a  great  underground,  many-armed,  polypus- 
like  creature,  which  is  as  proud  of  its  caudal  appen- 
dage, especially  in  summer-time,  as  a  peacock  of  his 
gorgeous  expanse  of  plumage. 

Do  you  think  there  is  anything  so  very  odd  about 
this  idea  ?  Once  get  it  well  into  your  heads,  and  you 
will  find  it  renders  the  landscape  wonderfully  inter- 
esting. There  are  as  many  kinds  of  tree-tails  as  there 
are  of  tails  to  dogs  and  other  quadrupeds.  Study 
them  as  Daddy  Gilpin  studied  them  in  his  "  Forest 
Scenery,"  but  don't  forget  that  they  are  only  the  ap- 
pendage of  the  underground  vegetable  polypus,  the 
true  organism  to  which  they  belong. 


214  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

He  paused  at  this  point,  and  we  all  drew  long 
breaths,  wondering  what  was  coming  next.  There  was 
no  denying  it,  the  "  cracked  Teacup  "  was  clinking  a 
little  false,  —  so  it  seemed  to  the  company.  Yet,  after 
all,  the  fancy  was  not  delirious,  —  the  mind  could  fol- 
low it  well  enough  ;  let  him  go  on. 

What  do  you  say  to  this  ?  You  have  heard  all  sorts 
of  things  said  in  prose  and  verse  about  Niagara.  Ask 
our  young  Doctor  there  what  it  reminds  him  of.  Is  n't 
it  a  giant  putting  his  tongue  out  ?  How  can  you  fail 
to  see  the  resemblance?  The  continent  is  a  great 
giant,  and  the  northern  half  holds  the  head  and  shoul- 
ders. You  can  count  the  pulse  of  the  giant  wherever 
the  tide  runs  up  a  creek  ;  but  if  you  want  to  look  at 
the  giant's  tongue,  you  must  go  to  Niagara.  If  there 
were  such  a  thing  as  a  cosmic  physician,  I  believe  he 
could  tell  the  state  of  the  country's  health,  and  the 
prospects  of  the  mortality  for  the  coming  season,  by 
careful  inspection  of  the  great  tongue  which  Niagara 
is  putting  out  for  him,  and  has  been  showing  to  man- 
kind ever  since  the  first  flint-shapers  chipped  their 
arrow-heads.  You  don't  think  the  idea  adds  to  the 
sublimity  and  associations  of  the  cataract?  I  am 
sorry  for  that,  but  I  can't  help  the  suggestion.  It  is 
just  as  manifestly  a  tongue  put  out  for  inspection  as 
if  it  had  Nature's  own  label  to  that  effect  hung  over 
it.  I  don't  know  whether  you  can  see  these  things  as 
clearly  as  I  do.  There  are  some  people  that  never 
see  anything,  if  it  is  as  plain  as  a  hole  in  a  grindstone, 
until  it  is  pointed  out  to  them ;  and  some  that  can't 
see  it  then,  and  won't  believe  there  is  any  hole  till 
they  've  poked  their  finger  through  it.  I  've  got  a 
great  many  things  to  thank  God  for,  but  perhaps  most 


OVER  THE   TEACUPS.  215 

of  all  that  I  can  find  something  to  admire,  to  wonder 
at,  tq  set  my  fancy  going,  and  to  wind  up  my  enthu- 
siasm pretty  much  everywhere. 

Look  here  !  There  are  crowds  of  people  whirled 
through  our  streets  on  these  new-fashioned  cars,  with 
their  witch-broomsticks  overhead,  —  if  they  don't  come 
from  Salem,  they  ought  to,  —  and  not  more  than  one 
in  a  dozen  of  these  fish-eyed  bipeds  thinks  or  cares  a 
nickel's  worth  about  the  miracle  which  is  wrought  for 
their  convenience.  They  know  that  without  hands  or 
feet,  without  horses,  without  steam,  so  far  as  they  can 
see,  they  are  transported  from  place  to  place,  and  that 
there  is  nothing  to  account  for  it  except  the  witch- 
broomstick  and  the  iron  or  copper  cobweb  which 
they  see  stretched  above  them.  What  do  they  know 
or  care  about  this  last  revelation  of  the  omnipresent 
spirit  of  the  material  universe  ?  We  ought  to  go 
down  on  our  knees  when  one  of  these  mighty  caravans, 
car  after  car,  spins  by  us,  under  the  mystic  impulse 
which  seems  to  know  not  whether  its  train  is  loaded 
or  empty.  We  are  used  to  force  in  the  muscles  of 
horses,  in  the  expansive  potency  of  steam,  but  here 
we  have  force  stripped  stark  naked,  —  nothing  but  a 
filament  to  cover  its  nudity,  —  and  yet  showing  its 
might  in  efforts  that  would  task  the  working-beam  of 
a  ponderous  steam-engine.  I  am  thankful  that  in  an 
age  of  cynicism  I  have  not  lost  my  reverence.  Per- 
haps you  would  wonder  to  see  how  some  very  common 
sights  impress  me.  I  always  take  off  my  hat  if  I  stop 
to  speak  to  a  stone-cutter  at  his  work.  "  Why?"  do 
you  ask  me  ?  Because  I  know  that  his  is  the  only  la- 
bor that  is  likely  to  endure.  A  score  of  centnries  has 
not  effaced  the  marks  of  the  Greek's  or  the  Roman's 
chisel  on  his  block  of  marble.  And  now,  before  this 


216  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

new  manifestation  of  that  form  of  cosmic  vitality  which 
we  call  electricity,  I  feel  like  taking  the  posture  of 
the  peasants  listening  to  the  Angelus.  How  near  the 
mystic  effluence  of  mechanical  energy  brings  us  to  the 
divine  source  of  all  power  and  motion  !  In  the  old 
mythology,  the  right  hand  of  Jove  held  and  sent  forth 
the  lightning.  So,  in  the  record  of  the  Hebrew  proph- 
ets, did  the  right  hand  of  Jehovah  cast  forth  and 
direct  it.  Was  Nahum  thinking  of  our  far-off  time 
when  he  wrote,  "  The  chariots  shall  rage  in  the  streets, 
they  shall  justle  one  against  another  in  the  broad  ways  : 
they  shall  seem  like  torches,  they  shall  run  like  the 
lightnings  "  ? 

Number  Seven  had  finished  reading  his  paper.  Two 
bright  spots  in  his  cheeks  showed  that  he  had  felt  a 
good  deal  in  writing  it,  and  the  flush  returned  as  he 
listened  to  his  own  thoughts.  Poor  old  fellow  !  The 
"  cracked  Teacup  "  of  our  younger  wits,  —  not  yet 
come  to  their  full  human  sensibilities,  —  the  "  crank  " 
of  vulgar  tongues,  the  eccentric,  .the  seventh  son  of  a 
seventh  son,  too  often  made  the  butt  of  thoughtless 
pleasantry,  was,  after  all,  a  fellow-creature,  with  flesh 
and  blood  like  the  rest  of  us.  The  wild  freaks  of  his 
fancy  did  not  hurt  us,  nor  did  they  prevent  him  from 
seeing  many  things  justly,  and  perhaps  sometimes 
more  vividly  and  acutely  than  if  he  were  as  sound  as 
the  dullest  of  us. 

The  teaspoons  tinkled  loudly  all  round  the  table,  as 
he  finished  reading.  The  Mistress  caught  her  breath. 
I  was  afraid  she  was  going  to  sob,  but  she  took  it  out 
in  vigorous  stirring  of  her  tea.  Will  you  believe  that 
I  saw  Number  Five,  with  a  sweet,  approving  smile  on 
her  face  all  the  time,  brush  her  cheek  with  her  hand- 


OVER   THE  TEACUPS.  217 

kerchief  ?  There  must  have  been  a  tear  stealing  from 
beneath  its  eyelid.  I  hope  Number  Seven  saw  it.  He 
is  one  of  the  two  men  at  our  table  who  most  need  the 
tender  looks  and  tones  of  a  woman.  The  Professor 
and  I  are  hors  de  combat ;  the  Counsellor  is  busy  with 
his  cases  and  his  ambitions  ;  the  Doctor  is  probably  in 
love  with  a  microscope,  and  flirting  with  pathological 
specimens ;  but  Number  Seven  and  the  Tutor  are,  I 
fear,  both  suffering  from  that  worst  of  all  famines, 
heart-hunger. 

Do  you  remember  that  Number  Seven  said  he  never 
wrote  a  line  of  "  poetry  "  in  his  life,  except  once  when 
he  was  suffering  from  temporary  weakness  of  body 
and  mind  ?  That  is  because  he  is  a  poet.  If  he  had 
not  been  one,  he  would  very  certainly  have  taken  to 
tinkling  rhymes.  What  should  you  think  of  the  prob- 
able musical  genius  of  a  young  man  who  was  particu- 
larly fond  of  jingling  a  set  of  sleigh-bells  ?  Should 
you  expect  him  to  turn  out  a  Mozart  or  a  Beethoven  ? 
Now,  I  think  I  recognize  the  poetical  instinct  in  Num- 
ber Seven,  however  imperfect  may  be  its  expression, 
and  however  he  may  be  run  away  with  at  times  by 
fantastic  notions  that  come  into  his  head.  If  fate  had 
allotted  him  a  helpful  companion  in  the  shape  of  a 
loving  and  intelligent  wife,  he  might  have  been  half 
cured  of  his  eccentricities,  and  we  should  not  have 
had  to  say,  in  speaking  of  him,  "  Poor  fellow  ! "  But 
since  this  cannot  be,  I  am  pleased  that  he  should  have 
been  so  kindly  treated  on  the  occasion  of  the  reading 
of  his  paper.  If  he  saw  Number  Five's  tear,  he  will 
certainly  fall  in  love  with  her.  No  matter  if  he  does. 
Number  Five  is  a  kind  of  Circe  who  does  not  turn  the 
victims  of  her  enchantment  into  swine,  but  into  lambs. 
I  want  to  see  Number  Seven  one  of  her  little  flock.  I 


218  OVER    THE   TEACUPS. 

say  "  little."  I  suspect  it  is  larger  than  most  of  us 
know.  Anyhow,  she  can  spare  him  sympathy  and 
kindness  and  encouragement  enough  to  keep  him  con- 
tented with  himself  and  with  her,  and  never  miss  the 
pulses  of  her  loving  life  she  lends  him.  It  seems  to 
be  the  errand  of  some  women  to  give  many  people 
as  much  happiness  as  they  have  any  right  to  in  this 
world.  If  they  concentrated  their  affection  on  one, 
they  would  give  him  more  than  any  mortal  could  claim 
as  his  share.  I  saw  Number  Five  watering  her  flow- 
ers, the  other  day.  The  watering-pot  had  one  of  those 
perforated  heads,  through  which  the  water  runs  in 
many  small  streams.  Every  plant  got  its  share  :  the 
proudest  lily  bent  beneath  the  gentle  shower ;  the 
lowliest  daisy  held  its  little  face  up  for  baptism.  All 
were  refreshed,  none  was  flooded.  Presently  she 
took  the  perforated  head,  or  "  rose,"  from  the  neck  of 
the  watering-pot,  and  the  full  stream  poured  out  in  a 
round,  solid  column.  It  was  almost  too  much  for  the 
poor  geranium  on  which  it  fell,  and  it  looked  at  one 
minute  as  if  the  roots  would  be  laid  bare,  and  perhaps 
the  whole  plant  be  washed  out  of  the  soil  in  which  it 
was  planted.  What  if  Number  Five  should  take  off 
the  "  rose  "  that  sprinkles  her  affections  on  so  many, 
and  pour  them  all  on  one  ?  Can  that  ever  be  ?  If  it 
can,  life  is  worth  living  for  him  on  whom  her  love  may 
be  lavished. 

One  of  my  neighbors,  a  thorough  American,  is 
much  concerned  about  the  growth  of  what  he  calls  the 
'hard-handed  aristocracy."  He  tells  the  following 
story :  — 

"  I  was  putting  up  a  fence  about  my  yard,  and  em- 
ployed a  man  of  whom  I  knew  something,  —  that  he 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  219 

was  industrious,  temperate,  and  that  he  had  a  wife 
and  children  to  support,  —  a  worthy  man,  a  native 
New  *Englander.  I  engaged  him,  I  say,  to  dig  some 
post-holes.  My  employee  bought  a  new  spade  and 
scoop  on  purpose,  and  came  to  my  place  at  the  ap- 
pointed time,  and  began  digging.  While  he  was  at 
work,  two  men  came  over  from  a  drinking-saloon,  to 
which  my  residence  is  nearer  than  I  could  desire. 
One  of  them  I  had  known  as  Mike  Fagan,  the  other 
as  Hans  Schleimer.  They  looked  at  Hiram,  my  New 
Hampshire  man,  in  a  contemptuous  and  threatening 
way  for  a  minute  or  so,  when  Fagan  addressed  him  :  — 

" '  And  how  much  does  the  man  pay  yez  by  the 
hour  ? ' 

"  '  The  gentleman  does  n't  pay  me  by  the  hour,' 
said  Hiram. 

"  '  How  mosh  does  he  bay  you  by  der.  veeks  ? '  said 
Hans. 

"  '  I  don'  know  as  that 's  any  of  your  business,'  an- 
swered Hiram. 

"  '  Faith,  we  '11  make  it  our  business,'  said  Mike 
Fagan.  '  We  're  Knoights  of  Labor,  we  'd  have  yez 
to  know,  and  ye  can't  make  yer  bargains  jist  as  ye 
loikes.  We  manes  to  know  how  mony  hours  ye 
worrks,  and  how  much  ye  gets  for  it.' 

"  '  Knights  of  Labor ! '  said  I.  '  Why,  that  is  a 
kind  of  title  of  nobility,  is  n't  it  ?  I  thought  the  laws 
of  our  country  did  n't  allow  titles  of  that  kind.  But 
if  you  have  a  right  to  be  called  knights,  I  suppose  I 
ought  to  address  you  as  such.  Sir  Michael,  I  con- 
gratulate you  on  the  dignity  you  have  attained.  I 
hope  Lady  Fagan  is  getting  on  well  with  my  shirts. 
Sir  Hans,  I  pay  my  respects  to  your  title.  I  trust 
that  Lady  Schleimer  has  got  through  that  little  diffi- 


220  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

culty  between  her  ladyship  and  yourself  in  which  the 
police  court  thought  it  necessary  to  intervene.' 

"  The  two  men  looked  at  me.  I  weigh  about  a  hun- 
dred and  eighty  pounds,  and  am  well  put  together. 
Hiram  was  noted  in  his  village  as  a  '  rahstler.'  But 
my  face  is  rather  pallid  and  peaked,  and  Hiram  had 
something  of  the  greenhorn  look.  The  two  men,  who 
had  been  drinking,  hardly  knew  what  ground  to  take. 
They  rather  liked  the  sound  of  /Sir  Michael  and  /Sir 
Hans.  They  did  not  know  very  well  what  to  make  of 
their  wives  as  '  ladies.'  They  looked  doubtful  whether 
to  take  what  had  been  said  as  a  casus  belli  or  not,  but 
they  wanted  a  pretext  of  some  kind  or  other.  Pres- 
ently one  of  them  saw  a  label  on  the  scoop,  or  long- 
handled,  spoon-like  shovel,  with  which  Hiram  had 
been  working. 

" '  Arrah,  be  jabers ! '  exclaimed  Mike  Fagan,  '  but 
has  n't  he  been  a-tradin'  wid  Brown,  the  hardware  fel- 
lah, that  we  boycotted !  Grab  it,  Hans,  and  we  '11 
carry  it  off  and  show  it  to  the  brotherhood.' 

"  The  men  made  a  move  toward  the  implement. 

" '  You  let  that  are  scoop-shovel  alone,'  said  Hiram. 

"  I  stepped  to  his  side.  The  Knights  were  com- 
bative, as  their  noble  predecessors  with  the  same  title 
always  were,  and  it  was  necessary  to  come  to  a  voie 
de  fait.  My  straight  blow  from  the  shoulder  did  for 
Sir  Michael.  Hiram  treated  Sir  Hans  to  what  is 
technically  known  as  a  cross-buttock. 

" '  Naow,  Dutchman,'  said  Hiram,  '  if  you  don't 
want  to  be  planted  in  that  are  post-hole,  y  'd  better 
take  y'rself  out  o'  this  here  piece  of  private  property. 
"  Dangerous  passin',"  as  the  sign-posts  say,  abaout 
these  times.' 

"  Sir  Michael  went  down  half  stunned  by  my  ex- 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  221 

pressive  gesture  ;  Sir  Hans  did  not  know  whether  his 
hip  was  out  of  joint  or  he  had  got  a  bad  sprain ;  but 
they  Were  both  out  of  condition  for  further  hostilities. 
Perhaps  it  was  hardly  fair  to  take  advantage  of  their 
misfortunes  to  inflict  a  discourse  upon  them,  but  they 
had  brought  it  on  themselves,  and  we  each  of  us  gave 
them  a  piece  of  our  mind. 

"  '  I  tell  you  what  it  is,'  said  Hiram,  '  I  'm  a  free 
and  independent  American  citizen,  and  I  an't  a-gon* 
to  hev  no  man  tyrannize  over  me,  if  he  doos  call  him- 
self by  one  o'  them  noblemen's  titles.  Ef  I  can't 
work  jes'  as  I  choose,  fur  folks  that  wants  me  to  work 
fur  'em  and  that  I  want  to  work  fur,  I  might  jes'  as 
well  go  to  Sibery  and  done  with  it.  My  gran'f'ther 
fit  in  Bunker  Hill  battle.  I  guess  if  our  folks  in  them 
days  did  n't  care  no  great  abaout  Lord  Percy  and  Sir 
William  Haowe,  we  an't  a-goii'  to  be  -scart  by  Sir 
Michael  Fagan  and  Sir  Hans  What  's-his-name,  nor 
no  other  fellahs  that  undertakes  to  be  noblemen,  and 
tells  us  common  folks  what  we  shall  dew  an'  what  we 
sha'n't.  No,  sir  !  ' 

"  I  took  the  opportunity  to  explain  to  Sir  Michael 
and  Sir  Hans  what  it  was  our  fathers  fought  for,  and 
what  is  the  meaning  of  liberty.  If  these  noblemen 
did  not  like  the  country,  they  could  go  elsewhere.  If 
they  did  n't  like  the  laws,  they  had  the  ballot-box,  and 
could  choose  new  legislators.  But  as  long  as  the  laws 
existed  they  must  obey  them.  I  could  not  admit  that, 
because  they  called  themselves  by  the  titles  the  Old 
World  nobility  thought  so  much  of,  they  had  a  right 
to  interfere  in  the  agreements  I  entered  into  with  my 
neighbor.  I  told  Sir  Michael  that  if  he  would  go 
home  and  help  Lady  Fagan  to  saw  and  split  the  wood 
for  her  fire,  he  would  be  better  employed  than  in  med- 


222  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

clling  with  my  domestic  arrangements.  I  advised  Sir 
Hans  to  ask  Lady  Schleimer  for  her  bottle  of  spirits 
to  use  as  an  embrocation  for  his  lame  hip.  And  so 
my  two  visitors  with  the  aristocratic  titles  staggered 
off,  and  left  us  plain,  untitled  citizens,  Hiram  and  my- 
self, to  set  our  posts,  and  consider  the  question  whether 
we  lived  in  a  free  country  or  under  the  authority  of  a 
self -constituted  order  of  ywasi-nobility." 

It  is  a  very  curious  fact  that,  with  all  our  boasted 
"  free  and  equal "  superiority  over  the  communities  of 
the  Old  World,  our  people  have  the  most  enormous 
appetite  for  Old  World  titles  of  distinction.  Sir  Mi- 
chael and  Sir  Hans  belong  to  one  of  the  most  extended 
of  the  aristocratic  orders.  But  we  have  also  "  Knights 
and  Ladies  of  Honor,"  and,  what  is  still  grander, 
"  Royal  Conclave  of  Knights  and  Ladies,"  "  Royal 
Arcanum,"  and  "  Royal  Society  of  Good  Fellows," 
"  Supreme  Council,"  "  Imperial  Court,"  "  Grand  Pro- 
tector," and  "  Grand  Dictator,"  and  so  on.  Nothing 
less  than  "  Grand  "  and  "  Supreme  "  is  good  enough 
for  the  dignitaries  of  our  associations  of  citizens. 
Where  does  all  this  ambition  for  names  without  reali- 
ties come  from  ?  Because  a  Knight  of  the  Garter 
wears  a  golden  star,  why  does  the  worthy  cordwainer, 
who  mends  the  shoes  of  his  fellow-citizens,  want  to 
wear  a  tin  star,  and  take  a  name  that  had  a  meaning 
as  used  by  the  representatives  of  ancient  families,  or 
the  men  who  had  made  themselves  illustrious  by  their 
achievements  ? 

It  appears  to  be  a  peculiarly  American  weakness. 
The  French  republicans  of  the  earlier  period  thought 
the  term  citizen  was  good  enough  for  anybody.  At  a 
later  period,  "  le  Roi  Citoyen  "  —  the  citizen  king  — • 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  223 

was  a  common  title  given  to  Louis  Philippe.  But 
nothing  is  too  grand  for  the  American,  in  the  way  of 
titles.  The  proudest  of  them  all  signify  absolutely 
nothing.  They  do  not  stand  for  ability,  for  public 
service,  for  social  importance,  for  large  possessions; 
but,  on  the  contrary,  are  oftenest  found  in  connection 
with  personalities  to  which  they  are  supremely  inap- 
plicable. We  can  hardly  afford  to  quarrel  with  a 
national  habit  which,  if  lightly  handled,  may  involve 
us  in  serious  domestic  difficulties.  The  "  Right  Wor- 
shipful "  functionary  whose  equipage  stops  at  my  back 
gate,  and  whose  services  are  indispensable  to  the 
health  and  comfort  of  my  household,  is  a  dignitary 
whom  I  must  not  offend.  I  must  speak  with  proper 
deference  to  the  lady  who  is  scrubbing  my  floors, 
when  I  remember  that  her  husband,  who  saws  my 
wood,  carries  a  string  of  high-sounding  titles  which 
would  satisfy  a  Spanish  nobleman. 

After  all,  every  people  must  have  its  own  forms  of 
ostentation,  pretence,  and  vulgarity.  The  ancient 
Romans  had  theirs,  the  English  and  the  French  have 
theirs  as  well,  —  why  should  not  we  Americans  have 
ours  ?  Educated  and  refined  persons  must  recognize 
frequent  internal  conflicts  between  the  "  Homo  sum  " 
of  Terence  and  the  "  Odiprofanum  vulgus  "  of  Horace. 
The  nobler  sentiment  should  be  that  of  every  true 
American,  and  it  is  in  that  direction  that  our  best 
civilization  is  constantly  tending. 

We  were  waited  on  by  a  new  girl,  the  other  even- 
ing. Our  pretty  maiden  had  left  us  for  a  visit  to 
some  relative,  —  so  the  Mistress  said.  I  do  sincerely 
hope  she  will  soon  come  back,  for  we  all  like  to  see 
her  flitting  round  the  table. 


224  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

I  don't  know  what  to  make  of  it.  I  had  it  all  laid 
out  in  my  mind.  With  such  a  company  there  must 
be  a  love-story.  Perhaps  there  will  be,  but  there  may 
be  new  combinations  of  the  elements  which  are  to 
make  it  up,  and  here  is  a  bud  among  the  full-blown 
flowers  to  which  I  must  devote  a  little  space. 

Delilah. 

I  must  call  her  by  the  name  we  gave  her  after  she 
had  trimmed  the  Samson  locks  of  our  Professor.  De- 
lilah is  a  puzzle  to  most  of  us.  A  pretty  creature,  — 
dangerously  pretty  to  be  in  a  station  not  guarded  by 
all  the  protective  arrangements  which  surround  the 
maidens  of  a  higher  social  order.  It  takes  a  strong 
cage  to  keep  in  a  tiger  or  a  grizzly  bear,  but  what  iron 
bars,  what  barbed  wires,  can  keep  out  the  smooth  and 
subtle  enemy  that  finds  out  the  cage  where  beauty  is 
imprisoned  ?  Our  young  Doctor  is  evidently  attracted 
by  the  charming  maiden  who  serves  him  and  us  so 
modestly  and  so  gracefully.  Fortunately,  the  Mistress 
never  loses  sight  of  her.  If  she  were  her  own  daugh- 
ter, she  could  not  be  more  watchful  of  all  her  move- 
ments. And  yet  I  do  not  believe  that  Delilah  needs 
all  this  overlooking.  If  I  am  not  mistaken,  she 
knows  how  to  take  care  of  herself,  and  could  be 
trusted  anywhere,  in  any  company,  without  a  duenna. 
She  has  a  history,  —  I  feel  sure  of  it.  She  has  been 
trained  and  taught  as  young  persons  of  higher  position 
in  life  are  brought  up,  and  does  not  belong  in  the 
humble  station  in  which  we  find  her.  But  inasmuch 
as  the  Mistress  says  nothing  about  her  antecedents, 
we  do  not  like  to  be  too  inquisitive.  The  two  An- 
nexes are,  it  is  plain,  very  curious  about  her.  I  can- 
not wonder.  They  are  both  good-looking  girls,  but 


OVER  THE   TEACUPS.  225 

Delilah  is  prettier  than  either  of  them.  My  sight  is 
not  so  good  as  it  was,  but  I  can  see  the  way  in  which 
the  eyes  of  the  young  people  follow  each  other  about 
plainly  enough  to  set  me  thinking  as  to  what  is  going 
on  in  the  thinking  marrow  behind  them.  The  young 
Doctor's  follow  Delilah  as  she  glides  round  the  table, 
—  they  look  into  hers  whenever  they  get  a  chance ; 
but  the  girl's  never  betray  any  consciousness  of  it,  so 
far  as  I  can  see.  There  is  no  mistaking  the  interest 
with  which  the  two  Annexes  watch  all  this.  Why 
should  n't  they,  I  should  like  to  know  ?  The  Doctor 
is  a  bright  young  fellow,  and  wants  nothing  but  a 
bald  spot  and  a  wife  to  find  himself  in  a  comfortable 
family  practice.  One  of  the  Annexes,  as  I  have  said, 
has  had  thoughts  of  becoming  a  doctress.  I  don't 
think  the  Doctor  would  want  his  wife  to  practise 
medicine,  for  reasons  which  I  will  not  stop  to  mention. 
Such  a  partnership  sometimes  works  wonderfully 
well,  as  in  one  well-known  instance  where  husband 
and  wife  are  both  eminent  in  the  profession  ;  but  our 
young  Doctor  has  said  to  me  that  he  had  rather  see 
his  wife,  —  if  he  ever  should  have  one,  —  at  the  piano 
than  at  the  dissecting-table.  Of  course  the  Annexes 
know  nothing  about  this,  and  they  may  think,  as  he 
professed  himself  willing  to  lecture  on  medicine  to 
women,  he  might  like  to  take  one  of  his  pupils  as  a 
helpmeet. 

If  it  were  not  for  our  Delilah's  humble  position,  I 
don't  see  why  she  would  not  be  a  good  match  for  any 
young  man.  But  then  it  is  so  hard  to  take  a  young 
woman  from  so  very  lowly  a  condition  as  that  of  a 
"  waitress  "  that  it  would  require  a  deal  of  courage  to 
venture  on  such  a  step.  If  we  could  only  find  out 
that  she  is  a  princess  in  disguise,  so  to  speak,  —  that 


226  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

is,  a  young  person  of  presentable  connections  as  well 
as  pleasing  looks  and  manners ;  that  she  has  had  an 
education  of  some  kind,  as  we  suspected  when  she 
blushed  on  hearing  herself  spoken  of  as  a  "  gentille 
petite"  why,  then  everything  would  be  all  right,  the 
young  Doctor  would  have  plain  sailing,  —  that  is,  if 
he  is  in  love  with  her,  and  if  she  fancies  him,  —  and  I 
should  find  my  love-story,  —  the  one  I  expected,  but 
not  between  the  parties  I  had  thought  would  be  mat- 
ing with  each  other. 

Dear  little  Delilah !  Lily  of  the  valley,  growing  in 
the  shade  now,  —  perhaps  better  there  until  her  petals 
drop ;  and  yet  if  she  is  all  I  often  fancy  she  is,  how 
her  youthful  presence  would  illuminate  and  sweeten  a 
household !  There  is  not  one  of  us  who  does  not  feel 
interested  in  her,  —  not  one  of  us  who  would  not  be 
delighted  at  some  Cinderella  transformation  which 
would  show  her  in  the  setting  Nature  meant  for  her 
favorite. 

The  fancy  of  Number  Seven  about  the  witches' 
broomsticks  suggested  to  one  of  us  the  following 
poem:  — 

THE  BROOMSTICK  TRAIN;    OR,  THE  RETURN  OF 
THE  WITCHES. 

Look  out !     Look  out,  boys  !     Clear  the  track  ! 
The  witches  are  here  !     They  've  all  come  back ! 
They  hanged  them  high,  —  No  use  !     No  use  ! 
What  cares  a  witch  for  a  hangman's  noose  ? 
They  buried  them  deep,  but  they  would  n't  lie  still, 
For  cats  and  witches  are  hard  to  kill ; 
They  swore  they  should  n't  and  would  n't  die,  — 
Books  said  they  did,  but  they  lie  !  they  lie  ! 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  227 

—  A  couple  of  hundred  years,  or  so, 
They  had  knocked  about  in  the  world  below, 
'When  an  Essex  Deacon  dropped  in  to  call, 
And  a  homesick  feeling  seized  them  all  ; 
For  he  came  from  a  place  they  knew  full  well, 
And  many  a  tale  he  had  to  tell. 
They  long  to  visit  the  haunts  of  men, 
To  see  the  old  dwellings  they  knew  again, 
And  ride  on  their  broomsticks  all  around 
Their  wide  domain  of  unhallowed  ground. 

In  Essex  county  there  's  many  a  roof 
Well  known  to  him  of  the  cloven  hoof  ; 
The  small  square  windows  are  full  in  view 
Which  the  midnight  hags  went  sailing  through, 
On  their  well-trained  broomsticks  mounted  high; 
Seen  like  shadows  against  the  sky  ; 
Crossing  the  track  of  owls  and  bats, 
Hugging  before  them  their  coal-black  cats. 

Well  did  they  know,  those  gray  old  wives, 

The  sights  we  see  in  our  daily  drives  : 

Shimmer  of  lake  and  shine  of  sea, 

Brown's  bare  hill  with  its  lonely  tree, 

(It  was  n't  then  as  we  see  it  now, 

With  one  scant  scalp-lock  to  shade  its  brow ;) 

Dusky  nooks  in  the  Essex  woods, 

Dark,  dim,  Dante-like  solitudes, 

Where  the  tree-toad  watches  the  sinuous  snake 

Glide  through  his  forests  of  fern  and  brake  ; 

Ipswich  River  ;  its  old  stone  bridge  ; 

Far  off  Andover's  Indian  Ridge, 

And  many  a  scene  where  history  tells 

Some  shadow  of  bygone  terror  dwells,  — 

Of  "  Norman's  Woe  "  with  its  tale  of  dread, 

Of  the  Screeching  Woman  of  Marblehead, 

(The  fearful  story  that  turns  men  pale  : 

Don't  bid  me  tell  it,  —  my  speech  would  fail.) 

Who  would  not,  will  not,  if  he  can, 
Bathe  in  the  breezes  of  fair  Cape  Ann,  — 


228  OVER   THE  TEACUPS. 

Rest  in  the  bowers  her  bays  enfold, 
Loved  by  the  sachems  and  squaws  of  old  ? 
Home  where  the  white  magnolias  bloom, 
Sweet  with  the  bayberry's  chaste  perfume, 
Hugged  by  the  woods  and  kissed  by  the  sea ! 
Where  is  the  Eden  like  to  thee  ? 

For  that  "  couple  of  hundred  years,  or  so," 
There  had  been  no  peace  in  the  world  below  ; 
The  witches  still  grumbling,  "  It  is  n't  fair  ; 
Come,  give  us  a  taste  of  the  upper  air ! 
We  've  had  enough  of  your  sulphur  springs, 
And  the  evil  odor  that  round  them  clings  ; 
We  long  for  a  drink  that  is  cool  and  nice,  — 
Great  buckets  of  water  with  Wenham  ice  ; 
We  've  served  you  well  up-stairs,  you  know  ; 
You  're  a  good  old  —  fellow  —  come,  let  us  go ! " 

I  don't  feel  sure  of  bis  being  good, 

Bnt  he  happened  to  be  in  a  pleasant  mood,  — 

As  fiends  with  their  skins  full  sometimes  are,  — 

(He  'd  been  drinking  with  "  roughs  "  at  a  Boston  bar.) 

So  what  does  he  do  but  up  and  shout 

To  a  graybeard  turnkey,  "  Let  'em  out !  " 

To  mind  his  orders  was  all  he  knew  ; 

The  gates  swung  open,  and  out  they  flew. 

"  Where  are  our  broomsticks  ?  "  the  beldams  cried. 

"  Here  are  your  broomsticks,"  an  imp  replied. 

"  They  Ve  been  in  —  the  place  you  know  —  so  long 

They  smell  of  brimstone  uncommon  strong  ; 

But  they  Ve  gained  by  being  left  alone,  — 

Just  look,  and  you  '11  see  how  tall  they  Ve  grown." 

—  "  And  where  is  my  cat  ?  "  a  vixen  squalled. 

"  Yes,  where  are  our  cats  ?  "  the  witches  bawled, 

And  began  to  call  them  all  by  name  : 

As  fast  as  they  called  the  cats,  they  came  : 

There  was  bob-tailed  Tommy  and  long-tailed  Tim, 

And  wall-eyed  Jacky  and  green-eyed  Jim, 

And  splay-foot  Benny  and  slim-legged  Beau, 

And  Skinny  and  Squally,  and  Jerry  and  Joe, 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  229 

And  many  another  that  came  at  call,  — 

It  would  take  too  long  to  count  them  all. 

All  black,  —  one  could  hardly  tell  which  was  which, 

But  every  cat  knew  his  own  old  witch  ; 

And  she  knew  hers  as  hers  knew  her,  — 

Ah,  did  n't  they  curl  their  tails  and  purr  ! 

No  sooner  the  withered  hags  were  free 

Than  out  they  swarmed  for  a  midnight  spree  ; 

I  could  n't  tell  all  they  did  in  rhymes, 

But  the  Essex  people  had  dreadful  times. 

The  Swampscott  fishermen  still  relate 

How  a  strange  sea-monster  stole  their  bait ; 

How  their  nets  were  tangled  in  loops  and  knots, 

And  they  found  dead  crabs  in  their  lobster-pots. 

Poor  Danvers  grieved  for  her  blasted  crops, 

And  Wilmington  mourned  over  mildewed  hops. 

A  blight  played  havoc  with  Beverly  beans,  — 

It  was  all  the  work  of  those  hateful  queans  ! 

A  dreadful  panic  began  at  "  Pride's," 

Where  the  witches  stopped  in  their  midnight  rides, 

And  there  rose  strange  rumors  and  vague  alarms 

'Mid  the  peaceful  dwellers  at  Beverly  Farms. 

Now  when  the  Boss  of  the  Beldams  found 

That  without  his  leave  they  were  ramping  round, 

He  called,  —  they  could  hear  him  twenty  miles, 

From  Chelsea  beach  to  the  Misery  Isles  ; 

The  deafest  old  granny  knew  his  tone 

Without  the  trick  of  the  telephone. 

"  Come  here,  you  witches  !     Come  here  ! "  says  he,  — 

"  At  your  games  of  old,  without  asking  me  ! 

1 11  give  you  a  little  job  to  do 

That  will  keep  you  stirring,  you  godless  crew  !  " 

They  came,  of  course,  at  their  master's  call, 
The  witches,  the  broomsticks,  the  cats,  and  all ; 
He  led  the  hags  to  a  railway  train 
The  horses  were  trying  to  drag  in  vain. 
"Now,  then,"  says  he,  "you've  had  your  fun, 
And  here  are  the  cars  you  've  got  to  run. 


230  OVER   THE  TEACUPS. 

The  driver  may  just  unhitch  his  team, 
We  don't  want  horses,  we  don't  want  steam  ; 
Yon  may  keep  your  old  black  cats  to  hug, 
But  the  loaded  train  you  've  got  to  lug." 

Since  then  on  many  a  car  you  '11  see 

A  broomstick  plain  as  plain  can  be  ; 

On  every  stick  there 's  a  witch  astride,  — 

The  string  you  see  to  her  leg  is  tied. 

She  will  do  a  mischief  if  she  can, 

But  the  string  is  held  by  a  careful  man, 

And  whenever  the  evil-minded  witch 

Would  cut  some  caper,  he  gives  a  twitch. 

As  for  the  hag,  you  can't  see  her, 

But  hark  !  you  can  hear  her  black  cat's  purr, 

And  now  and  then,  as  a  car  goes  by, 

You  may  catch  a  gleam  from  her  wicked  eye. 

Often  you  Ve  looked  on  a  rushing  train, 
But  just  what  moved  it  was  not  so  plain. 
It  could  n't  be  those  wires  above, 
For  they  could  neither  pull  nor  shove  ; 
Where  was  the  motor  that  made  it  go 
You  could  n't  guess,  but  now  you  know. 

Remember  my  rhymes  when  you  ride  again 
On  the  rattling  rail  by  the  broomstick  train  ! 


X. 


IN  my  last  report  of  our  talks  over  the  teacups  1 
had  something  to  say  of  the  fondness  of  our  people 
for  titles.  Where  did  the  anti-republican,  anti-demo- 
cratic passion  for  swelling  names  come  from,  and  how 
long  has  it  been  naturalized  among  us  ? 

A  striking  instance  of  it  occurred  at  about  the  end 
of  the  last  century.  It  was  at  that  time  there  ap- 
peared among  us  one  of  the  most  original  and  singu- 
lar personages  to  whom  America  has  given  birth. 
Many  of  our  company,  —  many  of  my  readers,  —  aie 
well  acquainted  with  his  name,  and  not  wholly  igno- 
rant of  his  history.  They  will  not  object  to  my  giv- 
ing some  particulars  relating  to  him,  which,  if  not  new 
to  them,  will  be  new  to  others  into  whose  hands  these 
pages  may  fall. 

Timothy  Dexter,  the  first  claimant  of  a  title  of 
nobility  among  the  people  of  the  United  States  of 
America,  was  born  in  the  town  of  Maiden,  near  Bos- 
ton. He  served  an  apprenticeship  as  a  leather-dresser, 
saved  some  money,  got  some  more  with  his  wife,  be- 
gan trading  and  speculating,  and  became  at  last  rich, 
for  those  days.  His  most  famous  business  enterprise 
was  that  of  sending  an  invoice  of  warming-pans  to  the 
West  Indies.  A  few  tons  of  ice  would  have  seemed 
to  promise  a  better  return ;  but  in  point  of  fact,  he 
tells  us,  the  warming-pans  were  found  useful  in  the 


232  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

manufacture  of  sugar,  and  brought  him  in  a  handsome 
profit.  His  ambition  rose  with  his  fortune.  He  pur- 
chased a  large  and  stately  house  in  Newburyport,  and 
proceeded  to  embellish  and  furnish  it  according  to  the 
dictates  of  his  taste  and  fancy.  In  the  grounds  about 
his  house,  he  caused  to  be  erected  between  forty  and 
fifty  wooden  statues  of  great  men  and  allegorical  fig- 
ures, together  with  four  lions  and  one  lamb.  Among 
these  images  were  two  statues  of  Dexter  himself,  one 
of  which  held  a  label  with  a  characteristic  inscription. 
His  house  was  ornamented  with  minarets,  adorned 
with  golden  balls,  and  surmounted  by  a  large  gilt 
eagle.  He  equipped  it  with  costly  furniture,  with 
paintings,  and  a  library.  He  went  so  far  as  to  pro- 
cure the  services  of  a  poet  laureate,  whose  business  it 
seems  to  have  been  to  sing  his  praises.  Surrounded 
with  splendors  like  these,  the  plain  title  of  "  Mr." 
Dexter  would  have  been  infinitely  too  mean  and  com- 
mon. He  therefore  boldly  took  the  step  of  self-en- 
nobling, and  gave  himself  forth  —  as  he  said,  obeying 
"  the  voice  of  the  people  at  large  "  —  as  "  Lord  Tim- 
othy Dexter,"  by  which  appellation  he  has  ever  since 
been  known  to  the  American  public. 

If  to  be  the  pioneer  in  the  introduction  of  Old 
World  titles  into  republican  America  can  confer  a 
claim  to  be  remembered  by  posterity,  Lord  Timo- 
thy Dexter  has  a  right  to  historic  immortality.  If 
the  true  American  spirit  shows  itself  most  clearly 
in  boundless  self-assertion,  Timothy  Dexter  is  the 
great  original  American  egotist.  If  to  throw  off 
the  shackles  of  Old  World  pedantry,  and  defy  the 
paltry  rules  and  examples  of  grammarians  and  rheto-  . 
ricians,  is  the  special  province  and  the  chartered  priv- 
ilege of  the  American  writer,  Timothy  Dexter  is  the 


OVER   THE  TEACUPS.  233 

founder  of  a  new  school,  which  tramples  under  foot  the 
conventionalities  that  hampered  and  subjugated  the 
faculties  of  the  poets,  the  dramatists,  the  historians, 
essayists,  story-tellers,  orators,  of  the  worn-out  races 
which  have  preceded  the  great  American  people. 

The  material  traces  of  the  first  American  noble- 
man's existence  have  nearly  disappeared.  The  house 
is  still  standing,  but  the  statues,  the  minarets,  the 
arches,  and  the  memory  of  the  great  Lord  Timothy 
Dexter  live  chiefly  in  tradition,  and  in  the  work  which 
he  bequeathed  to  posterity,  and  of  which  I  shall  say  a 
few  words.  It  is  unquestionably  a  thoroughly  original 
production,  and  I  fear  that  some  readers  may  think  I 
am  trifling  with  them  when  I  am  quoting  it  literally. 
I  am  going  to  make  a  strong  claim  for  Lord  Timothy 
as  against  other  candidates  for  a  certain  elevated 
position. 

Thomas  Jefferson  is  commonly  recognized  as  the 
first  to  proclaim  before  the  world  the  political  inde- 
pendence of  America.  It  is  not  so  generally  agreed 
upon  as  to  who  was  the  first  to  announce  the  literary 
emancipation  of  our  country. 

One  of  Mr.  Emerson's  biographers  has  claimed 
that  his  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Oration  was  our  Declaration 
of  Literary  Independence.  But  Mr.  Emerson  did 
not  cut  himself  loose  from  all  the  traditions  of  Old 
World  scholarship.  He  spelled  his  words  correctly, 
he  constructed  his  sentences  grammatically.  He  ad- 
hered to  the  slavish  rules  of  propriety,  and  observed 
the  reticences  which  a  traditional  delicacy  has  con- 
sidered inviolable  in  decent  society,  European  and 
Oriental  alike.  When  he  wrote  poetry,  he  commonly 
selected  subjects  which  seemed  adapted  to  poetical 


234  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

treatment,  —  apparently  thinking  that  all  things  were 
not  equally  calculated  to  inspire  the  true  poet's  genius. 
Once,  indeed,  he  ventured  to  refer  to  "  the  meal  in  the 
firkin,  the  milk  in  the  pan,"  but  he  chiefly  restricted 
himself  to  subjects  such  as  a  fastidious  convention- 
alism would  approve  as  having  a  certain  fitness  for 
poetical  treatment.  He  was  not  always  so  careful  as 
he  might  have  been  in  the  rhythm  and  rhyme  of  his 
verse,  but  in  the  main  he  recognized  the  old  estab- 
lished laws  which  have  been  accepted  as  regulating 
both.  In  short,  with  all  his  originality,  he  worked  in 
Old  World  harness,  and  cannot  be  considered  as  the 
creator  of  a  truly  American,  self -governed,  self-cen- 
tred, absolutely  independent  style  of  thinking  and 
writing,  knowing  no  law  but  its  own  sovereign  will 
and  pleasure. 

A  stronger  claim  might  be  urged  for  Mr.  Whitman. 
He  takes  into  his  hospitable  vocabulary  words  which 
no  English  dictionary  recognizes  as  belonging  to  the 
language,  —  words  which  will  be  looked  for  in  vain 
outside  of  his  own  pages.  He  accepts  as  poetical  sub- 
jects all  things  alike,  common  and  unclean,  without 
discrimination,  miscellaneous  as  the  contents  of  the 
great  sheet  which  Peter  saw  let  down  from  heaven. 
He  carries  the  principle  of  republicanism  through  the 
whole  world  of  created  objects.  He  will  "  thread  a 
thread  through  [his]  poems,"  he  tells  us,  "  that  no 
one  thing  in  the  universe  is  inferior  to  another  thing." 
No  man  has  ever  asserted  the  surpassing  dignity  and 
importance  of  the  American  citizen  so  boldly  and 
freely  as  Mr.  Whitman.  He  calls  himself  "  teacher 
of  the  unquenchable  creed,  namely,  egotism."  He 
begins  one  of  his  chants,  "  I  celebrate  myself,"  but  he 
takes  us  all  in  as  partnpvs  in  his  self-glorification.  He 
believes  in  America  as  the  new  Eden. 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  235 

M  A  world  primal  again,  —  vistas  of  glory  incessant  and  branch- 
ing, 

A  new  race  dominating  previous  ones  and  grander  far, 
New  politics  —  new  literature  and  religions  —  new  inventions 
and  arts." 

Of  the  new  literature  he  himself  has  furnished 
specimens  which  certainly  have  all  the  originality  he 
can  claim  for  them.  So  far  as  egotism  is  concerned, 
he  was  clearly  anticipated  by  the  titled  personage  to 
whom  I  have  referred,  who  says  of  himself,  "  I  am  the 
first  in  the  East,  the  first  in  the  West,  and  the  great- 
est philosopher  in  the  Western  world."  But  while 
Mr.  Whitman  divests  himself  of  a  part  of  his  bap- 
tismal name,  the  distinguished  New  Englander  thus 
announces  his  proud  position :  "  Ime  the  first  Lord  in 
the  younited  States  of  A  mercary  Now  of  Newbury- 
port,  it  is  the  voice  of  the  peopel  and  I  cant  Help  it." 
This  extract  is  from  his  famous  little  book  called  "  A 
Pickle  for  the  Knowing  Ones."  As  an  inventor  of 
a  new  American  style  he  goes  far  beyond  Mr.  Whit- 
man, who,  to  be  sure,  cares  little  for  the  dictionary, 
and  makes  his  own  rules  of  rhythm,  so  far  as  there  is 
any  rhythm  in  his  sentences.  But  Lord  Timothy 
spells  to  suit  himself,  and  in  place  of  employing  punc- 
tuation as  it  is  commonly  used,  prints  a  separate  page 
of  periods,  colons,  semicolons,  commas,  notes  of  inter- 
rogation and  of  admiration,  with  which  the  reader  is 
requested  to  "  peper  and  soolt "  the  book  as  he  pleases. 

I  am  afraid  that  Mr.  Emerson  and  Mr.  Whitman 
must  yield  the  claim  of  declaring  American  literary 
independence  to  Lord  Timothy  Dexter,  who  not  only 
taught  his  countrymen  that  they  need  not  go  to  the 
Heralds'  College  to  authenticate  their  titles  of  nobil- 
ity, but  also  that  they  were  at  perfect  liberty  to  spell 


236  OVEK  THE  TEACUPS. 

just  as  they  liked,  and  to  write  without  troubling  them- 
selves about  stops  of  any  kind.  In  writing  what  I 
suppose  he  intended  for  poetry,  he  did  not  even  take 
the  pains  to  break  up  his  lines  into  lengths  to  make 
them  look  like  verse,  as  may  be  seen  by  the  following 
specimen :  — 

WONDER  OF  WONDERS ! 

How  great  the  soul  is  !  Do  not  you  all  wonder  and  admire 
to  see  and  behold  and  hear  ?  Can  you  all  believe  half  the  truth, 
and  admire  to  hear  the  wonders  how  great  the  soul  is  —  only 
behold  —  past  finding  out  !  Only  see  how  large  the  soul  is  ! 
that  if  a  man  is  drowned  in  the  sea  what  a  great  bubble  comes 
up  out  of  the  top  of  the  water.  .  .  .  The  bubble  is  the  soul. 

I  confess  that  I  am  not  in  sympathy  with  some  of 
the  movements  that  accompany  the  manifestations  of 
American  social  and  literary  independence.  I  do  not 
like  the  assumption  of  titles  of  Lords  and  Knights  by 
plain  citizens  of  a  country  which  prides  itself  on  rec- 
ognizing simple  manhood  and  womanhood  as  suffi- 
ciently entitled  to  respect  without  these  unnecessary 
additions.  I  do  not  like  any  better  the  familiar,  and 
as  it  seems  to  me  rude,  way  of  speaking  of  our  fellow- 
citizens  who  are  entitled  to  the  common  courtesies  of 
civilized  society.  I  never  thought  it  dignified  or  even 
proper  for  a  President  of  the  United  States  to  call 
himself,  or  to  be  called  by  others,  "  Frank  "  Pierce. 
In  the  first  place  I  had  to  look  in  a  biographical  dic- 
tionary to  find  out  whether  his  baptismal  name  was 
Franklin,  or  Francis,  or  simply  Frank,  for  I  think 
children  are  sometimes  christened  with  this  abbrevi- 
ated name.  But  it  is  too  much  in  the  style  of  Cow- 
per's  unpleasant  acquaintance  :  — 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  287 

"  The  man  who  hails  you  Tom  or  Jack, 
And  proves  by  thumping  on  your  back 
How  he  esteems  your  merit." 

I  should  not  like  to  hear  our  past  chief  magistrates 
spoken  of  as  Jack  Adams  or  Jim  Madison,  and  it  would 
have  been  only  as  a  political  partisan  that  I  should 
have  reconciled  myself  to  "  Tom  "  Jefferson.  So,  in 
spite  of  "  Ben  "  Jonson,  "  Tom  "  Moore,  and  "  Jack  " 
Sheppard,  I  prefer  to  speak  of  a  fellow-citizen  already 
venerable  by  his  years,  entitled  to  respect  by  useful 
services  to  his  country,  and  recognized  by  many  as  the 
prophet  of  a  new  poetical  dispensation,  with  the  cus- 
tomary title  of  adults  rather  than  by  the  free  and  easy 
school-boy  abbreviation  with  which  he  introduced  him- 
self many  years  ago  to  the  public.  As  for  his  rhap- 
sodies, Number  Seven,  our  "  cracked  Teacup, "  says 
they  sound  to  him  like  "  fugues  played  on  a  big  organ 
which  has  been  struck  by  lightning."  So  far  as  con- 
cerns literary  independence,  if  we  understand  by  that 
term  the  getting  rid  of  our  subjection  to  British  crit- 
icism, such  as  it  was  in  the  days  when  the  question 
•was  asked,  "  Who  reads  an  American  book  ? "  we 
may  consider  it  pretty  well  established.  If  it  means 
dispensing  with  punctuation,  coining  words  at  will, 
self-revelation  unrestrained  by  a  sense  of  what  is  deco- 
rous, declamations  in  which  everything  is  glorified 
without  being  idealized,  "poetry"  in  which  the  reader 
must  make  the  rhythms  which  the  poet  has  not  made 
for  him,  then  I  think  we  had  better  continue  literary 
colonists.  I  shrink  from  a  lawless  independence  to 
which  all  the  virile  energy  and  trampling  audacity  of 
Mr.  Whitman  fail  to  reconcile  me.  But  there  is  room 
for  everybody  and  everything  in  our  huge  hemisphere. 
Young  America  is  like  a  three-year-old  colt  with  his 


238  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

saddle  and  bridle  just  taken  off.  The  first  thing  he 
wants  to  do  is  to  roll.  He  is  a  droll  object,  sprawling 
in  the  grass  with  his  four  hoofs  in  the  air ;  but  he 
likes  it,  and  it  won't  harm  us.  So  let  him  roll,  —  let 
him  roll ! 

Of  all  The  Teacups  around  our  table,  Number  Five 
is  the  one  who  is  the  object  of  the  greatest  interest. 
Everybody  wants  to  be  her  friend,  and  she  has  room 
enough  in  her  hospitable  nature  to  find  a  place  for 
every  one  who  is  worthy  of  the  privilege.  The  diffi- 
culty is  that  it  is  so  hard  to  be  her  friend  without  be- 
coming her  lover.  I  have  said  before  that  she  turns 
the  subjects  of  her  Circe-like  enchantment,  not  into 
swine,  but  into  lambs.  The  Professor  and  I  move 
round  among  her  lambs,  the  docile  and  amiable  flock 
that  come  and  go  at  her  bidding,  that  follow  her  foot- 
steps, and  are  content  to  live  in  the  sunshine  of  her 
smile  and  within  reach  of  the  music  of  her  voice.  I 
like  to  get  her  away  from  their  amiable  bleatings ;  I 
love  to  talk  with  her  about  life,  of  which  she  has  seen 
a  great  deal,  for  she  knows  what  it  is  to  be  an  idol  in 
society  and  the  centre  of  her  social  circle.  It  might 
be  a  question  whether  women  or  men  most  admire  and 
love  her.  With  her  own  sex  she  is  always  helpful, 
sympathizing,  tender,  charitable,  sharing  their  griefs 
as  well  as  taking  part  in  their  pleasures.  With  men 
it  has  seemed  to  make  little  difference  whether  they 
were  young  or  old :  all  have  found  her  the  same  sweet, 
generous,  unaffected  companion ;  fresh  enough  in  feel- 
ing for  the  youngest,  deep  enough  in  the  wisdom  of 
the  heart  for  the  oldest.  She  does  not  pretend  to  be 
youthful,  nor  does  she  trouble  herself  that  she  has  seen 
the  roses  of  more  Junes  than  many  of  the  younger 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  289 

women  who  gather  round  her.     She  has  not  had  to 

say,  „ 

Commeje  regrette 
Mon  bras  si  dodu, 

for  her  arm  has  never  lost  its  roundness,  and  her  face 
is  one  of  those  that  cannot  be  cheated  of  their  charm 
even  if  they  live  long  enough  to  look  upon  the  grown 
up  grandchildren  of  their  coevals. 

It  is  a  wonder  how  Number  Five  can  find  the  time 
to  be  so  much  to  so  many  friends  of  both  sexes,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  she  is  one  of  the  most  insatiable 
of  readers.  She  not  only  reads,  but  she  remembers ; 
she  not  only  remembers,  but  she  records,  for  her  own 
use  and  pleasure,  and  for  the  delight  and  profit  of 
those  who  are  privileged  to  look  over  her  note-books. 
Number  Five,  as  I  think  I  have  said  before,  has  not 
the  ambition  to  figure  as  an  authoress.  That  she 
could  write  most  agreeably  is  certain.  I  have  seen 
letters  of  hers  to  friends  which  prove  that  clearly 
enough.  Whether  she  would  find  prose  or  verse  the 
most  natural  mode  of  expression  I  cannot  say,  but  I 
know  she  is  passionately  fond  of  poetry,  and  I  should 
not  be  surprised  if,  laid  away  among  the  pressed  pan- 
sies  and  roses  of  past  summers,  there  were  poems,  — 
songs,  perhaps,  of  her  own,  which  she  sings  to  herself 
with  her  fingers  touching  the  piano ;  for  to  that  she 
tells  her  secrets  in  tones  sweet  as  the  ring-dove's  call 
to  her  mate. 

I  am  afraid  it  may  be  suggested  that  I  am  drawing 
Number  Five's  portrait  too  nearly  after  some  model 
who  is  unconsciously  sitting  for  it ;  but  have  n't  I  told 
you  that  you  must  not  look  for  flesh  and  blood  per- 
sonalities behind  or  beneath  my  Teacups  ?  I  am  not 
going  to  make  these  so  lifelike  that  you  will  be  saying, 


240  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

This  is  Mr.,  or  Miss,  or  Mrs.  So-and-So.  My  readers 
must  remember  that  there  are  very  many  pretty,  sweet, 
amiable  girls  and  women  sitting  at  their  pianos,  and 
finding  chords  to  the  music  of  their  heart-strings.  If 
I  have  pictured  Number  Five  as  one  of  her  lambs 
might  do  it,  I  have  succeeded  in  what  I  wanted  to  ac- 
complish. Why  don't  I  describe  her  person  ?  If  I 
do,  some  gossip  or  other  will  be  sure  to  say,  "  Oh,  he 
means  Aer,  of  course,"  and  find  a  name  to  match  the 
pronoun. 

It  is  strange  to  see  how  we  are  all  coming  to  depend 
upon  the  friendly  aid  of  Number  Five  in  our  various 
perplexities.  The  Counsellor  asked  her  opinion  in 
one  of  those  cases  where  a  divorce  was  too  probable, 
but  a  reconciliation  was  possible.  It  takes  a  woman 
to  sound  a  woman's  heart,  and  she  found  there  was 
still  love  enough  under  the  ruffled  waters  to  warrant 
the  hope  of  peace  and  tranquillity.  The  young  Doctor 
went  to  her  for  counsel  in  the  case  of  a  hysteric  girl 
possessed  with  the  idea  that  she  was  a  born  poetess, 
and  covering  whole  pages  of  foolscap  with  senseless 
outbursts,  which  she  wrote  in  paroxysms  of  wild  ex- 
citement, and  read  with  a  rapture  of  self -admiration 
which  there  was  nothing  in  her  verses  to  justify  or 
account  for.  How  sweetly  Number  Five  dealt  with 
that  poor  deluded  sister  in  her  talk  with  the  Doctor ! 
"Yes,"  she  said  to  him,  "nothing  can  be  fuller  of 
vanity,  self-worship,  and  self-deception.  But  we  must 
be  very  gentle  with  her.  I  knew  a  young  girl  tor- 
mented with  aspirations,  and  possessed  by  a  belief 
that  she  was  meant  for  a  higher  place  than  that  which 
fate  had  assigned  her,  who  needed  wholesome  advice, 
just  as  this  poor  young  thing  does.  She  did  not  ask 
for  it,  and  it  was  not  offered.  Alas,  alas !  '  no  man 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  241 

cared  for  her  soul,' —  no  man  nor  woman  either.  She 
was  in  her  early  teens,  and  the  thought  of  her  earthly 
future,  as  it  stretched  out  before  her,  was  more  than 
she  could  bear,  and  she  sought  the  presence  of  her 
Maker  to  ask  the  meaning  of  her  abortive  existence. 
—  We  will  talk  it  over.  I  will  help  you  take  care  of 
this  child." 

The  Doctor  was  thankful  to  have  her  assistance  in 
a  case  with  which  he  would  have  found  it  difficult  to 
deal  if  he  had  been  left  to  his  unaided  judgment, 
and  between  them  the  young  girl  was  safely  piloted 
through  the  perilous  straits  in  which  she  came  near 
shipwreck. 

I  know  that  it  is  commonly  said  of  her  that  every 
male  friend  of  hers  must  become  her  lover  unless  he 
is  already  lassoed  by  another.  Ufaut  passer  par  la. 
The  young  Doctor  is,  I  think,  safe,  for  I  am  convinced 
that  he  is  bewitched  with  Delilah.  Since  she  has  left 
us,  he  has  seemed  rather  dejected  ;  I  feel  sure  that  he 
misses  her.  We  all  do,  but  he  more  seriously  than 
the  rest  of  us.  I  have  said  that  I  cannot  tell  whether 
the  Counsellor  is  to  be  counted  as  one  of  Number 
Five's  lainbs  or  not,  but  he  evidently  admires  her,  and 
if  he  is  not  fascinated,  looks  as  if  he  were  very  near 
that  condition. 

It  was  a  more  delicate  matter  about  which  the 
Tutor  talked  with  her.  Something  which  she  had 
pleasantly  said  to  him  about  the  two  Annexes  led  him 
to  ask  her,  more  or  less  seriously,  it  may  be  remem- 
bered, about  the  fitness  of  either  of  them  to  be  the 
wife  of  a  young  man  in  his  position.  She  talked  so 
sensibly,  as  it  seemed  to  him,  about  it  that  he  contin- 
ued the  conversation,  and,  shy  as  he  was,  became  quite 
easy  and  confidential  in  her  company.  The  Tuter  is 


242  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

not  only  a  poet,  but  is  a  great  reader  of  the  poetry  of 
many  languages.  It  so  happened  that  Number  Five 
was  puzzled,  one  day,  in  reading  a  sonnet  of  Petrarch, 
and  had  recourse  to  the  Tutor  to  explain  the  difficult 
passage.  She  found  him  so  thoroughly  instructed,  so 
clear,  so  much  interested,  so  ready  to  impart  know- 
ledge, and  so  happy  in  his  way  of  doing  it,  that  she 
asked  him  if  he  would  not  allow  her  the  privilege  of 
reading  an  Italian  author  under  his  guidance,  now  and 
then. 

The  Tutor  found  Number  Five  an  apt  scholar,  and 
something  more  than  that ;  for  while,  as  a  linguist,  he 
was,  of  course,  her  master,  her  intelligent  comments 
brought  out  the  beauties  of  an  author  in  a  way  to 
make  the  text  seem  like  a  different  version.  They  did 
not  always  confine  themselves  to  the  book  they  were 
reading.  Number  Five  showed  some  curiosity  about 
the  Tutor's  relations  with  the  two  Annexes.  She  sug- 
gested whether  it  would  not  be  well  to  ask  one  or  both 
of  them  in  to  take  part  in  their  readings.  The  Tutor 
blushed  and  hesitated.  "  Perhaps  you  would  like  to 
ask  one  of  them,"  said  Number  Five.  "  Which  one 
shall  it  be?  "  "  It  makes  no  difference  to  me  which," 
he  answered,  "  but  I  do  not  see  that  we  need  either." 
Number  Five  did  not  press  the  matter  further.  So 
the  young  Tutor  and  Number  Five  read  together  pretty 
regularly,  and  came  to  depend  upon  their  meeting 
over  a  book  as  one  of  their  stated  seasons  of  enjoy- 
ment. He  is  so  many  years  younger  than  she  is  that 
I  do  not  suppose  he  will  have  to  pass  par  la,  as  most 
of  her  male  friends  have  done.  I  tell  her  sometimes 
that  she  reminds  me  of  my  Alma  Mater,  always  young, 
always  fresh  in  her  attractions,  with  her  scholars  all 
round  her,  many  of  them  graduates,  or  to  graduate 
sooner  or  later. 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  243 

What  do  I  mean  by  graduates  ?  Why,  that  they 
have  made  love  to  her,  and  would  be  entitled  to  her 
diploma,  if  she  gave  a  parchment  to  each  one  of 
them  who  had  had  the  courage  to  face  the  inevitable., 
About  the  Counsellor  I  am,  as  I  have  said,  in  doubt. 
Who  wrote  that  "  I  Like  You  and  I  Love  You,"  which 
we  found  in  the  sugar-bowl  the  other  day?  Was 
it  a  graduate  who  had  felt  the  "  icy  dagger,"  or  only 
a  candidate  for  graduation  who  was  afraid  of  it  ?  So 
completely  does  she  subjugate  those  who  come  under 
her  influence  that  I  believe  she  looks  upon  it  as  a  mat' 
ter  of  course  that  the  fateful  question  will  certainly 
come,  often  after  a  brief  acquaintance.  She  confessed 
as  much  to  me,  who  am  in  her  confidence,  and  not  a 
candidate  for  graduation  from  her  academy.  Her 
graduates  —  her  lambs  I  called  them  —  are  commonly 
faithful  to  her,  and  though  now  and  then  one  may 
have  gone  off  and  sulked  in  solitude,  most  of  them 
feel  kindly  to  her,  and  to  those  who  have  shared  the 
common  fate  of  her  suitors.  I  do  really  believe  that 
some  of  them  would  be  glad  to  see  her  captured  by 
any  one,  if  such  there  can  be,  who  is  worthy  of  her. 
She  is  the  best  of  friends,  they  say,  but  can  she  love 
anybody,  as  so  many  other  women  do,  or  seem  to  ? 
Why  should  n't  our  Musician,  who  is  evidently  fond 
of  her  company,  and  sings  and  plays  duets  with  her, 
steal  her  heart  as  Piozzi  stole  that  of  the  pretty  and 
bright  Mrs.  Thrale,  as  so  many  music-teachers  have 
run  away  with  their  pupils'  hearts  ?  At  present  she 
seems  to  be  getting  along  very  placidly  and  content- 
edly with  her  young  friend  the  Tutor.  There  is  some- 
thing quite  charming  in  their  relations  \i  ith  each  other. 
He  knows  many  things  she  does  not,  for  he  is  reck- 
oned one  of  the  most  learned  in  his  literary  specialty 


244  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

of  all  the  young  men  of  his  time ;  and  it  can  be  a 
question  of  only  a  few  years  when  some  first-class  pro- 
fessorship will  be  offered  him.  She,  on  the  other  hand, 
has  so  much  more  experience,  so  much  more  practi- 
cal wisdom,  than  he  has  that  he  consults  her  on  many 
every-day  questions,  as  he  did,  or  made  believe  do, 
about  that  of  making  love  to  one  of  the  two  Annexes. 
I  had  thought,  when  we  first  sat  round  the  tea-table, 
that  she  was  good  for  the  bit  of  romance  I  wanted ; 
but  since  she  has  undertaken  to  be  a  kind  of  half- 
maternal  friend  to  the  young  Tutor,  I  am  afraid  I 
shall  have  to  give  her  up  as  the  heroine  of  a  romantic 
episode.  It  would  be  a  pity  if  there  were  nothing  to 
commend  these  papers  to  those  who  take  up  this  peri- 
odical but  essays,  more  or  less  significant,  on  subjects 
more  or  less  interesting  to  the  jaded  and  impatient 
readers  of  the  numberless  stories  and  entertaining 
articles  which  crowd  the  magazines  of  this  prolific 
period.  A  whole  year  of  a  tea-table  as  large  as  ours 
without  a  single  love  passage  in  it  would  be  discredit- 
able to  the  company.  We  must  find  one,  or  make 
one,  before  the  tea-things  are  taken  away  and  the 
table  is  no  longer  spread. 

The  Dictator  turns  preacher. 

We  have  so  many  light  and  playful  talks  over  the 
teacups  that  some  readers  may  be  surprised  to  find  us 
taking  up  the  most  serious  and  solemn  subject  which 
can  occupy  a  human  intelligence.  The  sudden  ap- 
pearance among  our  New  England  Protestants  of  the 
doctrine  of  purgatory  as  a  possibility,  or  even  proba- 
bility, has  startled  the  descendants  of  the  Puritans. 
It  has  naturally  led  to  a  reconsideration  of  the  doc- 
trine of  eternal  punishment.  It  is  on  that  subject 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  245 

that  Number  Five  and  I  have  talked  together.  I  love 
to  listen  to  her,  for  she  talks  from  the  promptings  of 
a  true  woman's  heart.  I  love  to  talk  to  her,  for  I 
learn  my  own  thoughts  better  in  that  way  than  in  any 
other.  "  L'appetit  vient  en  mangeant"  the  French 
saying  has  it.  "  IS  esprit  vient  en  causant ;  "  that  is, 
if  one  can  find  the  right  persons  to  talk  with. 

The  subject  which  has  specially  interested  Number 
Five  and  myself,  of  late,  was' suggested  to  me  in  the 
following  way. 

Some  two  years  ago  I  received  a  letter  from  a 
clergyman  who  bears  by  inheritance  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  names  which  has  done  honor  to  the 
American  "  Orthodox  "  pulpit.  This  letter  requested 
of  me  "  a  contribution  to  a  proposed  work  which  was 
to  present  in  their  own  language  the  views  of  '  many 
men  of  many  minds '  on  the  subject  of  future  punish- 
ment. It  was  in  my  mind  to  let  the  public  hear  not 
only  from  professional  theologians,  but  from  other 
professions,  as  from  jurists  on  the  alleged  but  disputed 
value  of  the  hangman's  whip  overhanging  the  witness- 
box,  and  from  physicians  on  the  working  of  beliefs 
about  the  future  life  in  the  minds  of  the  dangerously 
sick.  And  I  could  not  help  thinking  what  a  good 
thing  it  would  be  to  draw  out  [the  present  writer] 
upon  his  favorite  borderland  between  the  spiritual 
and  the  material."  The  communication  came  to  me, 
as  the  writer  reminds  me  in  a  recent  letter,  at  a 
"painfully  inopportune  time,"  and  though  it  was 
courteously  answered,  was  not  made  the  subject  of  a 
special  reply. 

This  request  confers  upon  me  a  certain  right  to  ex- 
press my  opinion  on  this  weighty  subject  without  fear 
and  without  reproach  even  from  those  who  might  be 


246  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

ready  to  take  offence  at  one  of  the  laity  for  meddling 
with  pulpit  questions.  It  shows  also  that  this  is  not  a 
dead  issue  in  our  community,  as  some  of  the  younger 
generation  seem  to  think.  There  are  some,  there  may 
be  many,  who  would  like  to  hear  what  impressions 
one  has  received  on  the  subject  referred  to,  after  a 
long  life  in  which  he  has  heard  and  read  a  great  deal 
about  the  matter.  There  is  a  certain  gravity  in  the 
position  of  one  who  is,  in  the  order  of  nature,  very 
near  the  undiscovered  country.  A  man  who  has 
passed  his  eighth  decade  feels  as  if  he  were  already  in 
the  antechamber  of  the  apartments  which  he  may  be 
called  to  occupy  in  the  house  of  many  mansions.  His 
convictions  regarding  the  future  of  our  race  are  likely 
to  be  serious,  and  his  expressions  not  lightly  uttered. 
The  question  my  correspondent  suggests  is  a  tremen- 
dous one.  No  other  interest  compares  for  one  mo- 
ment with  that  belonging  to  it.  It  is  not  only  our- 
selves that  it  concerns,  but  all  whom  we  love  or  ever 
have  loved,  all  our  human  brotherhood,  as  well  as  our 
whole  idea  of  the  Being  who  made  us  and  the  relation 
in  which  He  stands  to  his  creatures.  In  attempting 
to  answer  my  correspondent's  question,  I  shall  no 
doubt  repeat  many  things  I  have  said  before  in  dif- 
ferent forms,  on  different  occasions.  This  is  no  more 
than  every  clergyman  does  habitually,  and  it  would  be 
hard  if  I  could  not  have  the  same  license  which  the 
professional  preacher  enjoys  so  fully. 

Number  Five  and  I  have  occasionally  talked  on  re- 
ligious questions,  and  discovered  many  points  of  agree- 
ment in  our  views.  Both  of  us  grew  up  under  the  old 
"  Orthodox  "  or  Calvinistic  system  of  belief.  Both  of 
us  accepted  it  in  our  early  years  as  a  part  of  our  edu- 
cation. Our  experience  is  a  common  one.  William 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  247 

Cullen  Bryant  says  of  himself,  "  The  Calvinistic 
system  of  divinity  I  adopted  of  course,  as  I  heard 
nothing  else  taught  from  the  pulpit,  and  supposed  it 
to  be  the  accepted  belief  of  the  religious  world."  But 
it  was  not  the  "five  points"  which  remained  in  the 
young  poet's  memory  and  shaped  his  higher  life.  It 
was  the  influence  of  his  mother  that  left  its  permanent 
impression  after  the  questions  and  answers  of  the  As- 
sembly's Catechism  had  faded  out,  or  remained  in 
memory  only  as  fossil  survivors  of  an  extinct  or  fast- 
disappearing  theological  formation.  The  important 
point  for  him,  as  for  so  many  other  children  of  Puri- 
tan descent,  was  not  his  father's  creed,  but  his 
mother's  character,  precepts,  and  example.  "  She 
was  a  person,"  he  says,  "  of  excellent  practical  sense, 
of  a  quick  and  sensitive  moral  judgment,  and  had  no 
patience  with  any  form  of  deceit  or  duplicity.  Her 
prompt  condemnation  of  injustice,  even  in  those  in- 
stances in  which  it  is  tolerated  by  the  world,  made  a 
strong  impression  upon  me  in  early  life ;  and  if,  in 
the  discussion  of  public  questions,  I  have  in  my  riper 
age  endeavored  to  keep  in  view  the  great  rule  of  right 
without  much  regard  to  persons,  it  has  been  owing  in 
a  great  degree  to  the  force  of  her  example,  which 
taught  me  never  to  countenance  a  wrong  because 
others  did." 

I  have  quoted  this  passage  because  it  was  an  expe- 
rience not  wholly  unlike  my  own,  and  in  certain  re- 
spects like  that  of  Number  Five.  To  grow  up  in  a 
narrow  creed  and  to  grow  out  of  it  is  a  tremendous 
trial  of  one's  nature.  There  is  always  a  bond  of  fel- 
lowship between  those  who  have  been  through  such  an 
ordeal. 

The  experiences  we  have  had  in  common  naturally 


248  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

lead  us  to  talk  over  the  theological  questions  which  at 
this  time  are  constantly  presenting  themselves  to  the 
public,  not  only  in  the  books  and  papers  expressly  de- 
voted to  that  class  of  subjects,  but  in  many  of  the 
newspapers  and  popular  periodicals,  from  the  week- 
lies to  the  quarterlies.  The  pulpit  used  to  lay  down 
the  law  to  the  pews ;  at  the  present  time,  it  is  of  more 
consequence  what  the  pews  think  than  what  the  min- 
ister does,  for  the  obvious  reason  that  the  pews  can 
change  their  minister,  and  often  do,  whereas  the  min- 
ister cannot  change  the  pews,  or  can  do  so  only  to  a 
very  limited  extent.  The  preacher's  garment  is  cut 
according  to  the  pattern  of  that  of  the  hearers,  for  the 
most  part.  Thirty  years  ago,  when  I  was  writing  on 
theological  subjects,  I  came  in  for  a  very  pretty  share 
of  abuse,  such  as  it  was  the  fashion  of  that  day,  at 
least  in  certain  quarters,  to  bestow  upon  those  who 
were  outside  of  the  high-walled  enclosures  in  which 
many  persons,  not  naturally  unamiable  or  exclusive, 
found  themselves  imprisoned.  Since  that  time  what 
changes  have  taken  place !  Who  will  believe  that  a 
well-behaved  and  reputable  citizen  could  have  been 
denounced  as  a  "  moral  parricide,"  because  he  attacked 
some  of  the  doctrines  in  which  he  was  supposed  to 
have  been  brought  up  ?  A  single  thought  should  have 
prevented  the  masked  theologian  who  abused  his  in- 
cognito from  using  such  libellous  language. 

Much,  and  in  many  families  most,  of  the  religious 
teaching  of  children  is  committed  to  the  mother.  The 
experience  of  William  Cullen  Bryant,  which  I  have 
related  in  his  own  words,  is  that  of  many  New  Eng- 
land children.  Now,  the  sternest  dogmas  that  ever 
came  from  a  soul  cramped  or  palsied  by  an  obsolete 
creed  become  wonderfully  softened  in  passing  between 


OVER   THE   TEACUPS.  249 

the  lips  of  a  mother.  The  cruel  doctrine  at  which  all 
but  case-hardened  "professionals"  shudder  comes  out, 
as  she  teaches  and  illustrates  it,  as  unlike  its  original 
as  the  milk  which  a  peasant  mother  gives  her  babe  is 
unlike  the  coarse  food  which  furnishes  her  nourish- 
ment. The  virus  of  a  cursing  creed  is  rendered  com- 
paratively harmless  by  the  time  it  reaches  the  young 
sinner  in  the  nursery.  Its  effects  fall  as  far  short  of 
what  might  have  been  expected  from  its  virulence  as 
the  pearly  vaccine  vesicle  falls  short  of  the  terrors  of 
the  confluent  small -pox.  Controversialists  should 
therefore  be  careful  (for  their  own  sakes,  for  they 
hurt  nobody  so  much  as  themselves)  how  they  use 
such  terms  as  "  parricide  "  as  characterizing  those  who 
do  not  agree  in  all  points  with  the  fathers  whom  or 
whose  memory  they  honor  and  venerate.  They  might 
with  as  much  propriety  call  them  matricides,  if  they 
did  not  agree  with  the  milder  teachings  of  their  moth- 
ers. I  can  imagine  Jonathan  Edwards  in  the  nursery 
with  his  three-year-old  child  upon  his  knee.  The 
child  looks  up  to  his  face  and  says  to  him,  — 

"  Papa,  nurse  tells  me  that  you  say  God  hates  me 
worse  than  He  hates  one  of  those  horrid  ugly  snakes 
that  crawl  all  round.  Does  God  hate  me  so  ?  " 

"  Alas !  my  child,  it  is  but  too  true.  So  long  as 
you  are  out  of  Christ  you  are  as  a  viper,  and  worse 
than  a  viper,  in  his  sight." 

By  and  by,  Mrs.  Edwards,  one  of  the  loveliest  of 
women  and  sweetest  of  mothers,  comes  into  the  nur- 
sery. The  child  is  crying. 

"  What  is  the  matter,  my  darling  ?  " 

"Papa  has  been  telling  me  that  God  hates  me 
worse  than  a  snake." 

Poor,   gentle,   poetical,  sensitive,  spiritual,  almost 


250  OVER   THE  TEACUPS. 

celestial  Mrs.  Jonathan  Edwards  !  On  the  one  hand 
the  terrible  sentence  conceived,  written  down,  given  to 
the  press,  by  the  child's  father ;  on  the  other  side  the 
trusting  child  looking  up  at  her,  and  all  the  mother 
pleading  in  her  heart  against  the  frightful  dogma  of 
her  revered  husband.  Do  you  suppose  she  left  that 
poison  to  rankle  in  the  tender  soul  of  her  darling? 
Would  it  have  been  moral  parricide  for  a  son  of  the 
great  divine  to  have  repudiated  the  doctrine  which 
degraded  his  blameless  infancy  to  the  condition  and 
below  the  condition  of  the  reptile  ?  Was  it  parricide 
in  the  second  or  third  degree  when  his  descendant 
struck  out  that  venomous  sentence  from  the  page  in 
which  it  stood  as  a  monument  to  what  depth  Christian 
heathenism  could  sink  under  the  teaching  of  the  great 
master  of  logic  and  spiritual  inhumanity?  It  is  too 
late  to  be  angry  about  the  abuse  a  well-meaning 
writer  received  thirty  years  ago.  The  whole  atmos- 
phere has  changed  since  then.  It  is  mere  childish- 
ness to  expect  men  to  believe  as  their  fathers  did ; 
that  is,  if  they  have  any  minds  of  their  own.  The 
world  is  a  whole  generation  older  and  wiser  than 
when  the  father  was  of  his  son's  age. 

So  far  as  I  have  observed  persons  nearing  the  end 
of  life,  the  Roman  Catholics  understand  the  business 
of  dying  better  than  Protestants.  They  have  an  ex- 
pert by  them,  armed  with  spiritual  specifics,  in  which 
they  both,  patient  and  priestly  ministrant,  place  im- 
plicit trust.  Confession,  the  Eucharist,  Extreme  Unc- 
tion, —  these  all  inspire  a  confidence  which  without 
this  symbolism  is  too  apt  to  be  wanting  in  over-sensi- 
tive natures.  They  have  been  peopled  in  earlier  years 
with  ghastly  spectres  of  avenging  fiends,  moving  in  a 
sleepless  world  of  devouring  flames  and  smothering 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  251 

exhalations ;  where  nothing  lives  but  the  sinner,  the 
fiends,  and  the  reptiles  who  help  to  make  life  an  un- 
ending torture.  It  is  no  wonder  that  these  images 
sometimes  return  to  the  enfeebled  intelligence.  To 
exorcise  them,  the  old  Church  of  Christendom  has  her 
mystic  formulae,  of  which  no  rationalistic  prescription 
can  take  the  place.  If  Cowper  had  been  a  good  Ro- 
man Catholic,  instead  of  having  his  conscience  han- 
dled by  a  Protestant  like  John  Newton,  he  would  not 
have  died  despairing,  looking  upon  himself  as  a  casta- 
way. I  have  seen  a  good  many  Roman  Catholics  on 
their  dying  beds,  and  it  always  appeared  to  me  that 
they  accepted  the  inevitable  with  a  composure  which 
showed  that  their  belief,  whether  or  not  the  best  to 
live  by,  was  a  better  one  to  die  by  than  most  of  the 
harder  creeds  which  have  replaced  it. 

In  the  more  intelligent  circles  of  American  society 
one  may  question  anything  and  everything,  if  he  will 
only  do  it  civilly.  We  may  talk  about  eschatology,  — 
the  science  of  last  things,  —  or,  if  you  will,  the  nat- 
ural history  of  the  undiscovered  country,  without 
offence  before  anybody  except  young  children  and 
very  old  wom^n  of  both  sexes.  In  our  New  England 
the  great  Andover  discussion  and  the  heretical  mis- 
sionary question  have  benumbed  all  sensibility  on  this 
subject  as  entirely,  as  completely,  as  the  new  local  an- 
aesthetic, cocaine,  deadens  the  sensibility  of  the  part 
to  which  it  is  applied,  so  that  the  eye  may  have  its 
mote  or  beam  plucked  out  without  feeling  it,  —  as  the 
novels  of  Zola  and  Maupassant  have  hardened  the 
delicate  nerve-centres  of  the  women  who  have  fed 
their  imaginations  on  the  food  they  have  furnished. 

The  generally   professed  belief  of  the  Protestant 


252  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

world  as  embodied  in  their  published  creeds  is  that 
the  great  mass  of  mankind  are  destined  to  an  eternity 
of  suffering.  That  this  eternity  is  to  be  one  of  bod- 
ily pain  —  of  "  torment  "  —  is  the  literal  teaching  of 
Scripture,  which  has  been  literally  interpreted  by  the 
theologians,  the  poets,  and  the  artists  of  many  long 
ages  which  followed  the  acceptance  of  the  recorded 
legends  of  the  church  as  infallible.  The  doctrine  has 
always  been  recognized,  as  it  is  now,  as  a  very  terrible 
one.  It  has  found  a  support  in  the  story  of  the  fall 
of  man,  and  the  view  taken  of  the  relation  of  man  to 
his  Maker  since  that  event.  The  hatred  of  God  to 
mankind  in  virtue  of  their  "  first  disobedience  "  and 
inherited  depravity  is  at  the  bottom  of  it.  The  ex- 
tent to  which  that  idea  was  carried  is  well  shown  in 
the  expressions  I  have  borrowed  from  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards. According  to  his  teaching,  —  and  he  was  a 
reasoner  who  knew  what  he  was  talking  about,  what 
was  involved  in  the  premises  of  the  faith  he  accepted, 
—  man  inherits  the  curse  of  God  as  his  principal 
birthright. 

What  shall  we  say  to  the  doctrine  of  the  fall  of 
man  as  the  ground  of  inflicting  endless  misery  on 
the  human  race  ?  A  man  to  be  punished  for  what 
he  could  not  help !  He  was  expected  to  be  called  to 
account  for  Adam's  sin.  It  is  singular  to  notice  that 
the  reasoning  of  the  wolf  with  the  lamb  should  be 
transferred  to  the  dealings  of  the  Creator  with  his 
creatures.  "  You  stirred  the  brook  up  and  made  my 
drinking-place  muddy."  "  But,  please  your  wolfship, 
I  could  n't  do  that,  for  I  stirred  the  water  far  down 
the  stream,  —  below  your  drinking-place."  "  Well, 
anyhow,  your  father  troubled  it  a  year  or  two  ago, 
and  that  is  the  same  thing."  So  the  wolf  falls  upon 


OVER  THE   TEACUPS.  253 

the  lamb  and  makes  a  meal  of  him.  That  is  wolf 
logic,  —  and  theological  reasoning. 

Hovr  shall  we  characterize  the  doctrine  of  endless 
torture  as  the  destiny  of  most  of  those  who  have 
lived,  and  are  living,  on  this  planet  ?  I  prefer  to  let 
another  writer  speak  of  it.  Mr.  John  Morley  uses 
the  following  words :  "  The  horrors  of  what  is  per- 
haps the  most  frightful  idea  that  has  ever  corroded 
human  character,  —  the  idea  of  eternal  punishment." 
Sismondi,  the  great  historian,  heard  a  sermon  on  eter- 
nal punishment,  and  vowed  never  again  to  enter  an- 
other church  holding  the  same  creed.  Romanism  he 
considered  a  religion  of  mercy  and  peace  by  the  side 
of  what  the  English  call  the  Reformation.  —  I  men- 
tion these  protests  because  I  happen  to  find  them 
among  my  notes,  but  it  would  be  easy  to  accumulate 
examples  of  the  same  kind.  When  Cowper,  at  about 
the  end  of  the  last  century,  said  satirically  of  the 
minister  he  was  attacking, 

"  He  never  mentioned  hell  to  ears  polite,  " 

he  was  giving  unconscious  evidence  that  the  sense  of 
the  barbarism  of  the  idea  was  finding  its  way  into  the 
pulpit.  When  Burns,  in  the  midst  of  the  sulphurous 
orthodoxy  of  Scotland,  dared  to  say, 

"  The  fear  o'  hell  's  a  hangman's  whip 
To  hand  the  wretch  in  order,  " 

he  was  only  appealing  to  the  common  sense  and  com- 
mon humanity  of  his  fellow-countrymen. 

All  the  reasoning  in  the  world,  all  the  proof -texts 
in  old  manuscripts,  cannot  reconcile  this  supposition 
of  a  world  of  sleepless  and  endless  torment  with  the 
declaration  that  "  God  is  love." 

Where  did  this  "  frightful  idea  "  come  from  ?     We 


254  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

are  surprised,  as  we  grow  older,  to  find  that  the  le- 
gendary hell  of  the  church  is  nothing  more  nor  less 
than  the  Tartarus  of  the  old  heathen  world.  It  has 
every  mark  of  coming  from  the  cruel  heart  of  a 
barbarous  despot.  Some  malignant  and  vindictive 
Sheik,  some  brutal  Mezentius,  must  have  sat  for  many 
pictures  of  the  Divinity.  It  was  not  enough  to  kill 
his  captive  enemy,  after  torturing  him  as  much  as 
ingenuity  could  contrive  to  do  it.  He  escaped  at  last 
by  death,  but  his  conqueror  could  not  give  him  up  so 
easily,  and  so  his  vengeance  followed  him  into  the 
unseen  and  unknown  world.  How  the  doctrine  got 
in  among  the  legends  of  the  church  we  are  no  more 
bound  to  show  than  we  are  to  account  for  the  interca- 
lation of  the  "  three  witnesses  "  text,  or  the  false  in- 
sertion, or  false  omission,  whichever  it  may  be,  of  the 
last  twelve  verses  of  the  Gospel  of  St  Mark.  We 
do  not  hang  our  grandmothers  now,  as  our  ancestors 
did  theirs,  on  the  strength  of  the  positive  command, 
"  Thou  shalt  not  suffer  a  witch  to  live." 

The  simple  truth  is  that  civilization  has  outgrown 
witchcraft,  and  is  outgrowing  the  Christian  Tartarus. 
The  pulpit  no  longer  troubles  itself  about  witches  and 
their  evil  doings.  All  the  legends  in  the  world  could 
aot  arrest  the  decay  of  that  superstition  and  all  the 
edicts  that  grew  out  of  it.  All  the  stories  that  can  be 
found  in  old  manuscripts  will  never  prevent  the  going 
out  of  the  fires  of  the  legendary  Inferno.  It  is  not 
much  talked  about  nowadays  to  ears  polite  or  impolite. 
Humanity  is  shocked  and  repelled  by  it.  The  heart 
of  woman  is  in  unconquerable  rebellion  against  it. 
The  more  humane  sects  tear  it  from  their  "  Bodies  of 
Divinity  "  as  if  it  were  the  flaming  shirt  of  Nessus. 
A  few  doctrines  with  which  it  was  bound  up  have 


OVER   THE  TEACUPS.  255 

dropped  or  are  dropping  away  from  it :  the  primal 
curse;  consequential  damages  to  give  infinite  exten- 
sion to  every  transgression  of  the  law  of  God ;  invert- 
ing the  natural  order  of  relative  obligations  ;  stretch- 
ing the  smallest  of  finite  offenses  to  the  proportions 
of  the  infinite  ;  making  the  babe  in  arms  the  respon- 
sible being,  and  not  the  parent  who  gave  it  birth  and 
determined  its  conditions  of  existence. 

After  a  doctrine  like  "the  hangman's  whip"  has 
served  its  purpose,  —  if  it  ever  had  any  useful  pur- 
pose, —  after  a  doctrine  like  that  of  witchcraft  has 
hanged  old  women  enough,  civilization  contrives  to  get 
rid  of  it.  When  we  say  that  civilization  crowds  out 
the  old  superstitious  legends,  we  recognize  two  chief 
causes.  The  first  is  the  naked  individual  protest ;  the 
voice  of  the  inspiration  which  giveth  man  understand- 
ing. This  shows  itself  conspicuously  in  the  modern 
poets.  Burns  in  Scotland,  Bryant,  Longfellow,  Whit- 
tier,  in  America,  preached  a  new  gospel  to  the  suc- 
cessors of  men  like  Thomas  Boston  and  Jonathan 
Edwards.  In  due  season,  the  growth  of  knowledge, 
chiefly  under  the  form  of  that  part  of  knowledge  called 
science,  so  changes  the  views  of  the  universe  that 
many  of  its  long-unchallenged  legends  become  no  more 
than  nursery  tales.  The  text-books  of  astronomy  and 
geology  work  their  way  in  between  the  questions  and 
answers  of  the  time-honored  catechisms.  The  doctrine 
of  evolution,  so  far  as  it  is  accepted,  changes  the  whole 
relations  of  man  to  the  creative  power.  It  substitutes 
infinite  hope  in  the  place  of  infinite  despair  for  the 
vast  majority  of  mankind.  Instead  of  a  shipwreck, 
from  which  a  few  cabin  passengers  and  others  are  to 
be  saved  in  the  long-boat,  it  gives  mankind  a  vessel 
built  to  endure  the  tempests,  and  at  last  to  reach  a 


256  OVER   THE  TEACUPS. 

port  where  at  the  worst  the  passengers  can  find  rest, 
and  where  they  may  hope  for  a  home  better  than  any 
which  they  ever  had  in  their  old  country.  It  is  all 
very  well  to  say  that  men  and  women  had  their  choice 
whether  they  would  reach  the  safe  harbor  or  not. 

"  Go  to  it  grandam,  child  ; 
Give  grandam  kingdom,  and  it  grandam  will 
Give  it  a  plum,  a  cherry  and  a  fig." 

We  know  what  the  child  will  take.  So  which  course 
we  shall  take  depends  very  much  on  the  way  the  choice 
is  presented  to  us,  and  on  what  the  chooser  is  by  na- 
ture. What  he  is  by  nature  is  not  determined  by 
himself,  but  by  his  parentage.  "  They  know  not  what 
they  do."  In  one  sense  this  is  true  of  every  human 
being.  The  agent  does  not  know,  never  can  know, 
what  makes  him  that  which  he  is.  What  we  most 
want  to  ask  of  our  Maker  is  an  unfolding  of  the  divine 
purpose  in  putting  human  beings  into  conditions  in 
which  such  numbers  of  them  wduld  be  sure  to  go 
wrong.  We  want  an  advocate  of  helpless  humanity 
whose  task  it  shall  be,  in  the  words  of  Milton, 

"  To  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man." 

We  have  heard  Milton's  argument,  but  for  the  reali- 
zation of  his  vision  of  the  time 

"  When  Hell  itself  shall  pass  away, 
And  leave  her  dolorous  mansions  to  the  peering  day,  " 

our  suffering  race  must  wait  in  patience. 

The  greater  part  of  the  discourse  the  reader  has  had 
before  him  was  delivered  over  the  teacups  one  Sunday 
afternoon.  The  Mistress  looked  rather  grave,  as  if 
doubtful  whether  she  ought  not  to  signify  her  disap- 
probation of  what  seemed  to  her  dangerous  doctrine. 


OVER    THE  TEACUPS.  257 

However,  as  she  knew  that  I  was  a  good  church-goer 
and  was  on  the  best  terms  with  her  minister,  she  said 
nothing  to  show  that  she  had  taken  the  alarm.  Num- 
ber Five  listened  approvingly.  We  had  talked  the 
question  over  well,  and  were  perfectly  agreed  on  the 
main  point.  How  could  it  be  otherwise?  Do  you 
suppose  that  any  intellectual,  spiritual  woman,  with  a 
heart  under  her  bodice,  can  for  a  moment  seriously 
believe  that  the  greater  number  of  the  high-minded 
men,  the  noble  and  lovely  women,  the  ingenuous  and 
affectionate  children,  whom  she  knows  and  honors  or 
loves,  are  to  be  handed  over  to  the  experts  in  a  great 
torture-chamber,  in  company  with  the  vilest  creatures 
that  have  once  worn  human  shape  ? 

"  If  there  is  such  a  world  as  used  to  be  talked  about 
from  the  pulpit,  you  may  depend  upon  it, "  she  said  to 
me  once,  "  there  will  soon  be  organized  a  Humane 
Society  in  heaven,  and  a  mission  established  among 
4  the  spirits  in  prison.' ' 

Number  Five  is  a  regular  church-goer,  as  I  am.  I 
do  not  believe  either  of  us  would  darken  the  doors  of 
a  church  if  we  were  likely  to  hear  any  of  the  "  old- 
fashioned  "  sermons,  such  as  I  used  to  listen  to  in 
former  years  from  a  noted  clergyman,  whose  specialty 
was  the  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment.  But  you  may 
go  to  the  churches  of  almost  any  of  our  Protestant 
denominations,  and  hear  sermons  by  which  you  can 
profit,  because  the  ministers  are  generally  good  men, 
whose  moral  and  spiritual  natures  are  above  the  aver- 
age, and  who  know  that  the  harsh  preaching  of  two 
or  three  generations  ago  would  offend  and  alienate  a 
large  part  of  their  audience.  So  neither  Number  Five 
nor  I  are  hypocrites  in  attending  church  or  "  going  to 
meeting."  I  am  afraid  it  does  not  make  a  great  deal 


258  OVEB   THE   TEACUPS. 

of  difference  to  either  of  us  what  may  be  the  estab- 
lished creed  of  the  worshipping  assembly.  That  is  a 
matter  of  great  interest,  perhaps  of  great  importance, 
to  them,  but  of  much  less,  comparatively,  to  us.  Com- 
panionship in  worship,  and  sitting  quiet  for  an  hour 
while  a  trained  speaker,  presumably  somewhat  better 
than  we  are,  stirs  up  our  spiritual  nature,  —  these  are 
reasons  enough  to  Number  Five,  as  to  me,  for  regular 
attendance  on  divine  worship. 

Number  Seven  is  of  a  different  way  of  thinking  and 
feeling.  He  insists  upon  it  that  the  churches  keep  in 
their  confessions  of  faith  statements  which  they  do  not 
believe,  and  that  it  is  notorious  that  they  are  afraid  to 
meddle  with  them.  The  Anglo-American  church  has 
dropped  the  Athanasian  Creed  from  its  service ;  the 
English  mother  church  is  afraid  to.  There  are  plenty 
of  Universalists,  Number  Seven  says,  in  the  Episcopa- 
lian and  other  Protestant  churches,  but  they  do  not 
avow  their  belief  in  any  frank  and  candid  fashion. 
The  churches  know  very  well,  he  maintains,  that  the 
fear  of  everlasting  punishment  more  than  any  or  all 
other  motives  is  the  source  of  their  power  and  the 
support  of  their  organizations.  Not  only  are  the  fears 
of  mankind  the  whip  to  scourge  and  the  bridle  to  re- 
strain them,  but  they  are  the  basis  of  an  almost  incal- 
culable material  interest.  "  Talk  about  giving  up  the 
doctrine  of  endless  punishment  by  fire !  "  exclaimed 
Number  Seven ;  "  there  is  more  capital  embarked  in 
the  subterranean  fire-chambers  than  in  all  the  iron- 
furnaces  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  To  think  what  an 
army  of  clerical  beggars  would  be  turned  loose  on  the 
world,  if  once  those  raging  flames  were  allowed  to  go 
out  or  to  calm  down !  Who  can  wonder  that  the  old 
conservatives  draw  back  startled  and  almost  fright 


OVER  THE   TEACUPS.  259 

ened  at  the  thought  that  there  may  be  a  possible  escape 
for  some  victims  whom  the  Devil  was  thought  to  have 
secured  ?  How  many  more  generations  will  pass  be- 
fore Milton's  alarming  prophecy  will  find  itself  real 
ized  in  the  belief  of  civilized  mankind  ?  " 

Remember  that  Number  Seven  is  called  a  "  crank  " 
by  many  persons,  and  take  his  remarks  for  just  what 
they  are  worth,  and  no  more. 

Out  of  the  preceding  conversation  must  have  origin- 
ated the  following  poem,  which  was  found  in  the  com- 
mon receptacle  of  these  versified  contributions  :  — 

TARTARUS. 

While  in  my  simple  gospel  creed 
That  "  God  is  Love  "  so  plain  I  read, 
Shall  dreams  of  heathen  birth  affright 
My  pathway  through  the  coming  night  ? 
Ah,  Lord  of  life,  though  spectres  pale 
Fill  with  their  threats  the  shadowy  vale, 
With  Thee  my  faltering  steps  to  aid, 
How  can  I  dare  to  be  afraid  ? 

Shall  mouldering  page  or  fading  scroll 
Outface  the  charter  of  the  soul  ? 
Shall  priesthood's  palsied  arm  protect 
The  wrong  our  human  hearts  reject, 
And  smite  the  lips  whose  shuddering  cry 
Proclaims  a  cruel  creed  a  lie  ? 
The  wizard's  rope  we  disallow 
Was  justice  once,  —  is  murder  now  ! 

Is  there  a  world  of  blank  despair, 
And  dwells  the  Omnipresent  there  ? 
Does  He  behold  with  smile  serene 
The  shows  of  that  unending  scene, 
Where  sleepless,  hopeless  anguish  lies, 
And,  ever  dying,  never  dies  ? 


260  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

Say,  does  He  hear  the  sufferer's  groan, 
And  is  that  child  of  wrath  lys  own  ? 

O  mortal,  wavering  in  thy  trust, 
Lift  thy  pale  forehead  from  the  dust ! 
The  mists  that  cloud  thy  darkened  eyes 
Fade  ere  they  reach  the  o'erarching  skies  1 
When  the  blind  heralds  of  despair 
Would  bid  thee  doubt  a  Father's  care, 
Look  up  from  earth,  and  read  above 
On  heaven's  blue  tablet,  GOD  is  LOVE  { 


XL 

The  tea  is  sweetened. 

WE  have  been  going  on  very  pleasantly  of  late, 
each  of  us  pretty  well  occupied  with  his  or  her  special 
business.  The  Counsellor  has  been  pleading  in  a 
great  case,  and  several  of  The  Teacups  were  in  the 
court-room.  I  thought,  but  I  will  not  be  certain,  that 
some  of  his  arguments  were  addressed  to  Number 
Five  rather  than  to  the  jury,  —  the  more  eloquent 
passages  especially. 

Our  young  Doctor  seems  to  me  to  be  gradually  get- 
ting known  in  the  neighborhood  and  beyond  it.  A 
member  of  one  of  the  more  influential  families,  whose 
regular  physician  has  gone  to  Europe,  has  sent  for 
him  to  come  and  see  her,  and  as  the  patient  is  a  nerv- 
ous lady,  who  has  nothing  in  particular  the  matter 
with  her,  he  is  probably  in  for  a  good  many  visits  and 
a  long  bill  by  and  by.  He  has  even  had  a  call  at  a 
distance  of  some  miles  from  home,  —  at  least  he  has 
had  to  hire  a  conveyance  frequently  of  late,  for  he  has 
not  yet  set  up  his  own  horse  and  chaise.  We  do  not 
like  to  ask  him  about  who  his  patient  may  be,  but  he 
or  she  is  probably  a  person  of  some  consequence,  as 
he  is  absent  several  hours  on  these  out-of-town  visits. 
He  may  get  a  good  practice  before  his  bald  spot 
makes  its  appearance,  for  I  have  looked  for  it  many 
times  without  as  yet  seeing  a  sign  of  it.  I  am  sure 
he  must  feel  encouraged,  for  he  has  been  very  bright 


262  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

and  cheerful  of  late ;  and  if  he  sometimes  looks  at  our 
new  handmaid  as  if  he  wished  she  were  Delilah,  I  do 
not  think  he  is  breaking  his  heart  about  her  absence. 
Perhaps  he  finds  consolation  in  the  company  of  the 
two  Annexes,  or  one  of  them,  —  but  which,  I  cannot 
make  out.  He  is  in  consultation  occasionally  with 
Number  Five,  too,  but  whether  professionally  or  not  I 
have  no  means  of  knowing.  I  cannot  for  the  life  of 
me  see  what  Number  Five  wants  of  a  doctor  for  her- 
self, so  perhaps  it  is  another  difficult  case  in  which 
her  womanly  sagacity  is  called  upon  to  help  him. 

In  the  mean  time  she  and  the  Tutor  continue  their 
readings.  In  fact,  it  seems  as  if  these  readings  were 
growing  more  frequent,  and  lasted  longer  than  they 
did  at  first.  There  is  a  little  arbor  in  the  grounds 
connected  with  our  place  of  meeting,  and  sometimes 
they  have  gone  there  for  their  readings.  Some  of 
The  Teacups  have  listened  outside  once  in  a  while, 
for  the  Tutor  reads  well,  and  his  clear  voice  must  be 
heard  in  the  more  emphatic  passages,  whether  one  is 
expressly  listening  or  not.  But  besides  the  reading 
there  is  now  and  then  some  talking,  and  persons  talk- 
ing in  an  arbor  do  not  always  remember  that  lattice- 
work, no  matter  how  closely  the  vines  cover  it,  is  not 
impenetrable  to  the  sound  of  the  human  voice.  There 
was  a  listener  one  day,  —  it  was  not  one  of  The  Tea- 
cups, I  am  happy  to  say,  —  who  heard  and  reported 
some  fragments  of  a  conversation  which  reached  his 
ear.  Nothing  but  the  profound  intimacy  which  exists 
between  myself  and  the  individual  reader  whose  eyes 
are  on  this  page  would  induce  me  to  reveal  what  I 
was  told  of  this  conversation.  The  first  words  seem 
to  have  been  in  reply  to  some  question. 

"  Why,  my  dear  friend,  how  can  you  think  of  such 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  263 

a  thing  ?  Do  you  know  —  I  am  —  old  enough  to  be 
your  —  [I  think  she  must  have  been  on  the  point  of 
saying  mother^  but  that  was  more  than  any  woman 
could  be  expected  to  say]  —  old  enough  to  be  your  — 
aunt?" 

"  To  be  sure  you  are,"  answered  the  Tutor,  "  and 
what  of  it  ?  I  have  two  aunts,  both  younger  than  I 
am.  Your  years  may  be  more  than  mine,  but  your 
life  is  fuller  of  youthful  vitality  than  mine  is.  I 
never  feel  so  young  as  when  I  have  been  with  you.  I 
don't  believe  in  settling  affinities  by  the  almanac. 
You  know  what  I  have  told  you  more  than  once ;  you 
have  n't  '  bared  the  ice-cold  dagger's  edge '  upon  me 
yet ;  may  I  not  cherish  the  "... 

What  a  pity  that  the  listener  did  not  hear  the  rest 
of  the  sentence  and  the  reply  to  it,  if  there  was  one  ! 
The  readings  went  on  the  same  as  before,  but  I 
thought  that  Number  Five  was  rather  more  silent  and 
more  pensive  than  she  had  been. 

I  was  much  pleased  when  the  American  Annex 
came  to  me  one  day  and  told  me  that  she  and  the 
English  Annex  were  meditating  an  expedition,  in 
which  they  wanted  the  other  Teacups  to  join.  About 
a  dozen  miles  from  us  is  an  educational  institution 
of  the 'higher  grade,  where  a  large  number  of  young 
ladies  are  trained  in  literature,  art,  and  science,  very 
much  as  their  brothers  are  trained  in  the  colleges. 
Our  two  young  ladies  have  already  been  through 
courses  of  this  kind  in  different  schools,  and  are  now 
busy  with  those  more  advanced  studies  which  are  ven- 
tured upon  by  only  a  limited  number  of  "  graduates." 
They  have  heard  a  good  deal  about  this  institution, 
but  have  never  visited  it. 


264  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

Every  year,  as  the  successive  classes  finish  their 
course,  there  is  a  grand  reunion  of  the  former  stu- 
dents, with  an  "  exhibition,"  as  it  is  called,  in  which 
the  graduates  of  the  year  have  an  opportunity  of 
showing  their  proficiency  in  the  various  branches 
taught.  On  that  occasion  prizes  are  awarded  for  ex 
cellence  in  different  departments.  It  would  be  hard 
to  find  a  more  interesting  ceremony.  These  girls, 
now  recognized  as  young  ladies,  are  going  forth  as 
missionaries  of  civilization  among  our  busy  people. 
They  are  many  of  them  to  be  teachers,  and  those  who 
have  seen  what  opportunities  they  have  to  learn  will 
understand  their  fitness  for  that  exalted  office.  Many 
are  to  be  the  wives  and  mothers  of  the  generation 
next  coming  upon  the  stage.  Young  and  beautiful,  — 
"  youth  is  always  beautiful,"  said  old  Samuel  Rogers, 
—  their  countenances  radiant  with  developed  intelli- 
gence, their  complexions,  their  figures,  their  move- 
ments, all  showing  that  they  have  had  plenty  of  out- 
door as  well  as  indoor  exercise,  and  have  lived  well  in 
all  respects,  one  would  like  to  read  on  the  wall  of  the 
hall  where  they  are  assembled,  — 

Siste,  viator! 
Si  uxorem  requiris,  circumspice  ! 

This  proposed  expedition  was  a  great  event  in  our 
comparatively  quiet  circle.  The  Mistress,  who  was 
interested  in  the  school,  undertook  to  be  the  matron 
of  the  party.  The  young  Doctor,  who  knew  the  roads 
better  than  any  of  us,  was  to  be  our  pilot.  He  ar- 
ranged it  so  that  he  should  have  the  two  Annexes  un 
der  his  more  immediate  charge.  We  were  all  on  the 
lookout  to  see  which  of  the  two  was  to  be  the  favored 
one,  for  it  was  pretty  well  settled  among  The  Teacups 
that  a  wife  he  must  have,  whether  the  bald  spot  came 


OVER  THE   TEACUPS.  265 

^r  not ;  he  was  getting  into  business,  and  he  could  not 
achieve  a  complete  success  as  a  bachelor. 

Number  Five  and  the  Tutor  seemed  to  come  to- 
gether as  a  matter  of  course.  I  confess  that  I  could 
not  help  regretting  that  our  pretty  Delilah  was  not 
to  be  one  of  the  party.  She  always  looked  so  young, 
so  fresh,  —  she  would  have  enjoyed  the  excursion  so 
much,  that  if  she  had  been  still  with  us  I  would  have 
told  the  Mistress  that  she  must  put  on  her  best  dress  ; 
and  if  she  had  n't  one  nice  enough,  I  would  give  her 
one  myself.  I  thought,  too,  that  our  young  Doctor 
would  have  liked  to  have  her  with  us ;  but  he  ap- 
peared to  be  getting  along  very  well  with  the  An- 
nexes, one  of  whom  it  seems  likely  that  he  will  annex 
to  himself  and  his  fortunes,  if  she  fancies  him,  which 
is  not  improbable. 

The  organizing  of  this  expedition  was  naturally  a 
cause  of  great  excitement  among  The  Teacups.  The 
party  had  to  be  arranged  in  such  a  way  as  to  suit  all 
concerned,  which  was  a  delicate  matter.  It  was  finally 
managed  in  this  way :  The  Mistress  was  to  go  with  a 
bodyguard,  consisting  of  myself,  the  Professor,  and 
Number  Seven,  who  was  good  company,  with  all  his 
oddities.  The  young  Doctor  was  to  take  the  two  An- 
nexes in  a  wagon,  and  the  Tutor  was  to  drive  Number 
Five  in  a  good  old-fashioned  chaise  drawn  by  a  well- 
conducted  family  horse.  As  for  the  Musician,  he  had 
gone  over  early,  by  special  invitation,  to  take  a  part  in 
certain  musical  exercises  which  were  to  have  a  place 
in  the  exhibition.  This  arrangement  appeared  to  be 
in  every  respect  satisfactory.  The  Doctor  was  in  high 
spirits,  apparently  delighted,  and  devoting  himself 
with  great  gallantry  to  his  two  fair  companions.  The 
only  question  which  intruded  itself  was,  whether  he 


266  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

might  not  have  preferred  the  company  of  one  to  that 
of  two.  But  both  looked  very  attractive  in  their  best 
dresses :  the  English  Annex,  the  rosier  and  heartier 
of  the  two  ;  the  American  girl,  more  delicate  in  fea- 
tures, more  mobile  and  excitable,  but  suggesting  the 
thought  that  she  would  tire  out  before  the  other. 
Which  of  these  did  he  most  favor  ?  It  was  hard  to 
say.  He  seemed  to  look  most  at  the  English  girl, 
and  yet  he  talked  more  with  the  American  girl.  In 
*  short,  he  behaved  particularly  well,  and  neither  of  the 
young  ladies  could  complain  that  she  was  not  attended 
to.  As  to  the  Tutor  and  Number  Five,  their  going 
together  caused  no  special  comment.  Their  intimacy 
was  accepted  as  an  established  fact,  and  nothing  but 
the  difference  in  their  ages  prevented  the  conclusion 
that  it  was  love,  and  not  mere  friendship,  which 
brought  them  together.  There  was,  no  doubt,  a  strong 
feeling  among  many  people  that  Number  Five's  affec- 
tions were  a  kind  of  Gibraltar  or  Ehrenbreitstein,  — 
say  rather  a  high  table-land  in  the  region  of  perpetual, 
tinmelting  snow.  It  was  hard  for  these  people  to  be- 
lieve that  any  man  of  mortal  mould  could  find  a  foot- 
hold in  that  impregnable  fortress,  —  could  climb  to 
that  height  and  find  the  flower  of  love  among  its 
glaciers.  The  Tutor  and  Number  Five  were  both 
quiet,  thoughtful :  he,  evidently  captivated ;  she,  — 
what  was  the  meaning  of  her  manner  to  him  ?  Say 
that  she  seemed  fond  of  him,  as  she  might  be  were  he 
her  nephew,  —  one  for  whom  she  had  a  special  liking. 
If  she  had  a  warmer  feeling  than  this,  she  could 
hardly  know  how  to  manage  it ;  for  she  was  so  used 
to  having  love  made  to  her  without  returning  it  that 
she  would  naturally  be  awkward  in  dealing  with  the 
new  experience. 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  267 

The  Doctor  drove  a  lively  five-year-old  horse,  and 
took  the  lead.  The  Tutor  followed  with  a  quiet, 
steady-going  nag ;  if  he  had  driven  the  five-year-old, 
I  would  not  have  answered  for  the  necks  of  the  pair 
in  the  chaise,  for  he  was  too  much  taken  up  with  the 
subject  they  were  talking  of,  to  be  very  careful  about 
his  driving.  The  Mistress  and  her  escort  brought  up 
the  rear,  —  I  holding  the  reins,  the  Professor  at  my 
side,  and  Number  Seven  sitting  with  the  Mistress. 

We  arrived  at  the  institution  a  little  later  than  we 
had  expected  to,  and  the  students  were  flocking  into 
the  hall,  where  the  Commencement  exercises  were  to 
take  place,  and  the  medal-scholars  were  to  receive  the 
tokens  of  their  excellence  in  the  various  departments. 
From  our  seats  we  could  see  the  greater  part  of  the 
assembly,  —  not  quite  all,  however  of  the  pupils.  A 
pleasing  sight  it  was  to  look  upon,  this  array  of  young 
ladies  dressed  in  white,  with  their  class  badges,  and 
with  the  ribbon  of  the  shade  of  blue  affected  by  the 
scholars  of  the  institution.  If  Solomon  in  all  his 
glory  was  not  to  be  compared  to  a  lily,  a  whole  bed 
of  lilies  could  not  be  compared  to  this  garden-bed  of 
youthful  womanhood. 

The  performances  were  very  much  the  same  as 
most  of  us  have  seen  at  the  academies  and  collegiate 
schools.  Some  of  the  graduating  class  read  their 
"  compositions,"  one  of  which  was  a  poem,  —  an  echo 
of  the  prevailing  American  echoes,  of  course,  but 
prettily  worded  and  intelligently  read.  Then  there 
was  a  song  sung  by  a  choir  of  the  pupils,  led  by  their 
instructor,  who  was  assisted  by  the  Musician  whom 
we  count  among  The  Teacups.  There  was  something 
in  one  of  the  voices  that  reminded  me  of  one  I  had 
heard  before.  Where  could  it  have  been  ?  I  am 


268  OVER    THE   TEACUPS. 

sure  I  cannot  remember.  There  are  some  good  voices 
in  our  village  choir,  but  none  so  pure  and  bird-like  as 
this.  A  sudden  thought  came  into  my  head,  but  I 
kept  it  to  myself.  I  heard  a  tremulous  catching  of 
the  breath,  something  like  a  sob,  close  by  me.  It  was 
the  Mistress,  —  she  was  crying.  What  was  she  cry- 
ing for?  It  was  impressive,  certainly,  to  listen  to 
these  young  voices,  many  of  them  blending  for  the 
last  time,  —  for  the  scholars  were  soon  to  be  scattered 
all  over  the  country,  and  some  of  them  beyond  its 
boundaries,  —  but  why  the  Mistress  was  so  carried 
away,  I  did  not  know.  She  must  be  more  impressible 
than  most  of  us ;  yet  I  thought  Number  Five  also 
looked  as  if  she  were  having  a  struggle  with  herself 
to  keep  down  some  rebellious  signs  of  emotion. 

The  exercises  went  on  very  pleasingly  until  they 
came  to  the  awarding  of  the  gold  medal  of  the  year 
and  the  valedictory,  which  was  to  be  delivered  by  the 
young  lady  to  whom  it  was  to  be  presented.  The 
name  was  called;  it  was  one  not  unfamiliar  to  our 
ears,  and  the  bearer  of  it  —  the  Delilah  of  our  tea- 
table,  Avis  as  she  was  known  in  the  school  and  else- 
where —  rose  in  her  place  and  came  forward,  so  that 
for  the  first  time  on  that  day,  we  looked  upon  her.  It 
was  a  sensation  for  The  Teacups.  Our  modest,  quiet 
waiting-girl  was  the  best  scholar  of  her  year.  We 
had  talked  French  before  her,  and  we  learned  that 
she  was  the  best  French  scholar  the  teacher  had  ever 
had  in  the  school.  We  had  never  thought  of  her  ex- 
cept as  a  pleasing  and  well-trained  handmaiden,  and 
here  she  was  an  accomplished  young  lady. 

Avis  went  through  her  part  very  naturally  and  grace- 
fully, and  when  it  was  finished,  and  she  stood  before 
us  with  the  medal  glittering  on  her  breast,  we  did  not 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  269 

know  whether  to  smile  or  to  cry,  —  some  of  us  did 
one,  and  some  the  other. — We  all  had  an  opportunity 
to  see  her  and  congratulate  her  before  we  left  the  in- 
stitution. The  mystery  of  her  six  weeks'  serving  at 
our  table  was  easily  solved.  She  had  been  studying 
too  hard  and  too  long,  and  required  some  change  of 
scene  and  occupation.  She  had  a  fancy  for  trying  to 
see  if  she  could  support  herself  as  so  many  young 
women  are  obliged  to,  and  found  a  place  with  us,  — 
the  Mistress  only  knowing  her  secret. 

"  She  is  to  be  our  young  Doctor's  wife  !  "  the  Mis- 
tress whispered  to  me,  and  did  some  more  crying,  — 
not  for  grief,  certainly. 

Whether  our  young  Doctor's  long  visits  to  a  neigh- 
boring town  had  anything  to  do  with  the  fact  that 
Avis  was  at  that  institution,  whether  she  was  the  pa- 
tient he  visited  or  not,  may  be  left  in  doubt.  At  all 
events,  he  had  always  driven  off  in  the  direction  which 
would  carry  him  to  the  place  where  she  was  at  school. 

I  have  attended  a  large  number  of  celebrations, 
commencements,  banquets,  soirees,  and  so  forth,  and 
done  my  best  to  help  on  a  good  many  of  them.  In 
fact,  I  have  become  rather  too  well  known  in  connec- 
tion with  "  occasions,"  and  it  has  cost  me  no  little 
trouble.  I  believe  there  is  no  kind  of  occurrence  for 
which  I  have  not  been  requested  to  contribute  some- 
thing in  prose  or  verse.  It  is  sometimes  very  hard  to 
say  no  to  the  requests.  If  one  is  in  the  right  mood 
when  he  or  she  writes  an  occasional  poem,  it  seems  as 
if  nothing  could  have  been  easier.  "  Why,  that  piece 
run  off  jest  like  ile.  I  don't  bullieve,"  the  unlettered 
applicant  says  to  himself,  —  "I  don't  bullieve  it  took 
him  ten  minutes  to  write  them  verses."  The  good 


270  OVER    THE   TEACUPS. 

people  have  no  suspicion  of  how  much  a  single  line,  a 
single  expression,  may  cost  its  author.  The  wits  used 
to  say  that  Rogers,  —  the  poet  once  before  referred  to, 
old  Samuel  Rogers,  author  of  the  Pleasures  of  Mem- 
ory and  giver  of  famous  breakfasts,  —  was  accustomed 
to  have  straw  laid  before  the  house  whenever  he  had 
just  given  birth  to  a  couplet.  It  is  not  quite  so  bad 
as  that  with  most  of  us  who  are  called  upon  to  furnish 
a  poem,  a  song,  a  hymn,  an  ode  for  some  grand  meet- 
ing, but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  many  a  trifling  perform- 
ance has  had  more  good  honest  work  put  into  it  than 
the  minister's  sermon  of  that  week  had  cost  him.  If 
a  vessel  glides  off  the  ways  smoothly  and  easily  at  her 
launching,  it  does  not  mean  that  no  great  pains  have 
been  taken  to  secure  the  result.  Because  a  poem  is 
an  "  occasional "  one,  it  does  not  follow  that  it  has 
not  taken  as  much  time  and  skill  as  if  it  had  been 
written  without  immediate,  accidental,  temporary  mo- 
tive. Pindar's  great  odes  were  occasional  poems,  just 
as  much  as  our  Commencement  and  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
poems  are,  and  yet  they  have  come  down  among  the 
most  precious  bequests  of  antiquity  to  modern  times. 

The  mystery  of  the  young  Doctor's  long  visits  to 
the  neighboring  town  was  satisfactorily  explained  by 
what  we  saw  and  heard  of  his  relations  with  our  charm- 
ing "  Delilah,  "  —  for  Delilah  we  could  hardly  help 
calling  her.  Our  little  handmaid,  the  Cinderella  of 
the  teacups,  now  the  princess,  or,  what  was  better,  the 
pride  of  the  school  to  which  she  had  belonged,  fit  for 
any  position  to  which  she  might  be  called,  was  to  be 
the  wife  of  our  young  Doctor.  It  would  not  have  been 
the  right  thing  to  proclaim  the  fact  while  she  was  a 
pupil,  but  now  that  she  had  finished  her  course  of  in- 
struction there  was  no  need  of  making  a  secret  of  the 
engagement. 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  271 

So  we  have  got  our  romance,  our  love-story  out  of 
our  Teacups,  as  I  hoped  and  expected  that  we  should, 
but  not  exactly  in  the  quarter  where  it  might  have 
been  looked  for. 

What  did  our  two  Annexes  say  to  this  unexpected 
turn  of  events  ?  They  were  good-hearted  girls  as  ever 
lived,  but  they  were  human,  like  the  rest  of  us,  and 
women,  like  some  of  the  rest  of  us.  They  behaved 
perfectly.  They  congratulated  the  Doctor,  and  hoped 
he  would  bring  the  young  lady  to  the  tea-table  where 
she  had  played  her  part  so  becomingly.  It  is  safe  to 
say  that  each  of  the  Annexes  would  have  liked  to  be 
asked  the  lover's  last  question  by  the  very  nice  young 
man  who  had  been  a  pleasant  companion  at  the  table 
and  elsewhere  to  each  of  them.  That  same  question  is 
the  highest  compliment  a  man  can  pay  a-  woman,  and 
a  woman  does  not  mind  having  a  dozen  or  more  such 
compliments  to  string  on  the  rosary  of  her  remem- 
brances. Whether  either  of  them  was  glad,  on  the 
whole,  that  he  had  not  offered  himself  to  the  other  in 
preference  to  herself  would  be  a  mean,  shabby  ques- 
tion, and  I  think  altogether  too  well  of  you  who  are 
reading  this  paper  to  suppose  that  you  would  entertain 
the  idea  of  asking  it. 

It  was  a  very  pleasant  occasion  when  the  Doctor 
brought  Avis  over  to  sit  with  us  at  the  table  where  she 
used  to  stand  and  wait  upon  us.  We  wondered  how 
we  could  for  a  moment  have  questioned  that  she  was 
one  to  be  waited  upon,  and  not  made  for  the  humble 
office  which  nevertheless  she  performed  so  cheerfully 
and  so  well. 


272  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

Commencements  and   other   Celebrations,  American 
and  English. 

The  social  habits  of  our  people  have  undergone  an 
immense  change  within  the  past  half  century,  largely 
in  consequence  of  the  vast  development  of  the  means 
of  intercourse  between  different  neighborhoods. 

Commencements,  college  gatherings  of  all  kinds, 
church  assemblages,  school  anniversaries,  town  centen- 
nials, —  all  possible  occasions  for  getting  crowds  to- 
gether are  made  the  most  of.  "  'T  is  sixty  years 
since, "  —  and  a  good  many  years  over,  —  the  time  to 
which  my  memory  extends.  The  great  days  of  the 
year  were,  Election,  —  General  Election  on  Wednes- 
day, and  Artillery  Election  on  the  Monday  following, 
at  which  time  lilacs  were  in  bloom  and  'lection  buns 
were  in  order ;  Fourth  of  July,  when  strawberries 
were  just  going  out;  and  Commencement,  a  grand 
time  of  feasting,  fiddling,  dancing,  jollity,  not  to  men- 
tion drunkenness  and  fighting,  on  the  classic  green 
of  Cambridge.  This  was  the  season  of  melons  and 
peaches.  That  is  the  way  our  boyhood  chronicles 
events.  It  was  odd  that  the  literary  festival  should 
be  turned  into  a  Donnybrook  fair,  but  so  it  was  when 
I  was  a  boy,  and  the  tents  and  the  shows  and  the 
crowds  on  the  Common  were  to  the  promiscuous  many 
the  essential  parts  of  the  great  occasion.  They  had 
been  so  for  generations,  and  it  was  only  gradually  that 
the  Cambridge  Saturnalia  were  replaced  by  the  decen- 
cies and  solemnities  of  the  present  sober  anniversary. 

Nowadays  our  celebrations  smack  of  the  Sunday- 
school  more  than  of  the  dancing-hall.  The  aroma  of 
the  punch-bowl  has  given  way  to  the  milder  flavor  of 
lemonade  and  the  cooling  virtues  of  ice-cream.  A 


OVER   THE   TEACUPS.  273 

strawberry  festival  is  about  as  far  as  the  dissipation  of 
our  social  gatherings  ventures.  There  was  much  that 
was  objectionable  in  those  swearing,  drinking,  fighting 
times,  but  they  had  a  certain  excitement  for  us  boys 
of  the  years  when  the  century  was  in  its  teens,  which 
comes  back  to  us  not  without  its  fascinations.  The 
days  of  total  abstinence  are  a  great  improvement  over 
those  of  unlicensed  license,  but  there  was  a  picturesque 
element  about  the  rowdyism  of  our  old  Commence- 
ment days,  which  had  a  charm  for  the  eye  of  boyhood. 
My  dear  old  friend,  —  book-friend,  I  mean,  —  whom  I 
always  called  Daddy  Gilpin  (as  I  find  Fitzgerald  called 
Wordsworth,  Daddy  Wordsworth),  —  my  old  friend 
Gilpin,  I  say,  considered  the  donkey  more  picturesque 
in  a  landscape  than  the  horse.  So  a  village  fete  as 
depicted  by  Teniers  is  more  picturesque  than  a  teetotal 
picnic  or  a  Sabbath  -  school  strawberry  festival.  Let 
us  be  thankful  that  the  vicious  picturesque  is  only  a 
remembrance,  and  the  virtuous  commonplace  a  reality 
of  to-day. 

What  put  all  this  into  my  head  is  something  which 
the  English  Annex  has  been  showing  me.  Most  of 
my  readers  are  somewhat  acquainted  with  our  own 
church  and  village  celebrations.  They  know  how  they 
are  organized ;  the  women  always  being  the  chief 
motors,  and  the  machinery  very  much  the  same  in  one 
case  as  in  another.  Perhaps  they  would  like  to  hear 
how  such  things  are  managed  in  England ;  and  that 
is  just  what  they  may  learn  from  the  pamphlet  which 
was  shown  me  by  the  English  Annex,  and  of  which  I 
will  give  them  a  brief  account. 

Some  of  us  remember  the  Rev.  Mr.  Haweis,  his 
lectures  and  his  violin,  which  interested  and  amused 


274  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

us  here  in  Boston  a  few  years  ago.  Now  Mr.  Haweis, 
assisted  by  his  intelligent  and  spirited  wife,  has  charge 
of  the  parish  of  St.  James,  Westmoreland  Street, 
Marylebone,  London.  On  entering  upon  the  twenty- 
fifth  year  of  his  incumbency  in  Marylebone,  and  the 
twenty-eighth  of  his  ministry  in  the  diocese  of  London, 
it  was  thought  a  good  idea  to  have  an  "  Evening  Con- 
versazione and  Fete."  We  can  imagine  just  how  such 
a  meeting  would  be  organized  in  one  of  our  towns. 
Ministers,  deacons,  perhaps  a  member  of  Congress, 
possibly  a  Senator,  and  even,  conceivably,  his  Excel- 
lency the  Governor,  and  a  long  list  of  ladies  lend  their 
names  to  give  lustre  to  the  occasion.  It  is  all  very 
pleasant,  unpretending,  unceremonious,  cheerful,  well 
ordered,  commendable,  but  not  imposing. 

Now  look  at  our  Marylebone  parish  celebration,  and 
hold  your  breath  while  the  procession  of  great  names 
passes  before  you.  You  learn  at  the  outset  that  it  is 
held  UNDER  KOYAL  PATRONAGE,  and  read  the  names 
of  two  royal  highnesses,  one  highness,  a  prince,  and  a 
princess.  Then  comes  a  list  before  which  if  you  do 
not  turn  pale,  you  must  certainly  be  in  the  habit  of 
rouging :  three  earls,  seven  lords,  three  bishops,  two 
generals  (one  of  them  Lord  Wolseley),  one  admiral, 
four  baronets,  nine  knights,  a  crowd  of  right  honor- 
able and  honorable  ladies  (many  of  them  peeresses), 
and  a  mob  of  other  personages,  among  whom  I  find 
Mr.  Howells,  Bret  Harte,  and  myself. 

Perhaps  we  are  disposed  to  smile  at  seeing  so  much 
made  of  titles ;  but  after  what  we  have  learned  of  Lord 
Timothy  Dexter  and  the  high-sounding  names  appro- 
priated by  many .  of  our  own  compatriots,  who  have 
no  more  claim  to  them  than  we  plain  Misters  and 
Misseses,  we  may  feel  to  them  something  as  our  late 


OVER   THE   TEACUPS.  275 

friend  Mr.  Appleton  felt  to  the  real  green  turtle  soup 
set  before  him,  when  he  said  that  it  was  almost  as 
good  as  mock. 

The  entertainment  on  this  occasion  was  of  the  most 
varied  character.  The  programme  makes  the  follow- 
ing announcement :  — 

Friday,  4  July,  18 — . 

At  8  P.  M.  the  Doors  will  Open. 

Mr.  Haweis  will  receive  his  Friends. 

The  Royal  Handbell  Ringers  will  Ring. 

The  Fish-pond  will  be  Fished. 

The  Stalls  will  be  Visited. 

The  Phonograph  will  Utter. 

Refreshments  will  be  called  for,  and  they  will  come,  —  Tea, 
Coffee,  and  Cooling  Drinks.  Spirits  will  not  be  called  for,  — 
from  the  Vasty  Deep  or  anywhere  else,  —  nor  would  they  come 
if  they  were. 

At  9.30  Mrs.  Haweis  will  join  the  assembly. 

I  am  particularly  delighted  with  this  last  feature  in 
the  preliminary  announcement.  It  is  a  proof  of  the 
high  regard  in  which  the  estimable  and  gifted  lady 
who  shares  her  husband's  labors  is  held  by  the  people 
of  their  congregation,  and  the  friends  who  share  in 
their  feelings.  It  is  such  a  master  stroke  of  policy, 
too,  to  keep  back  the  principal  attraction  until  the 
guests  must  have  grown  eager  for  her  appearance.  I 
can  well  imagine  how  great  a  saving  it  must  have 
been  to  the  good  lady's  nerves,  which  were  probably 
pretty  well  tried  already  by  the  fatigues  and  respon- 
sibilities of  the  busy  evening.  I  have  a  right  to  say 
this,  for  I  myself  had  the  honor  of  attending  a  meet- 
ing at  Mr.  Haweis's  house,  where  I  was  a  principal 
guest,  as  I  suppose,  from  the  fact  of  the  great  number 
of  persons  who  were  presented  to  me.  The  minister 


276  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

must  be  very  popular,  for  the  meeting  was  a  regular 
jam,  —  not  quite  so  tremendous  as  that  greater  one, 
where  but  for  the  aid  of  Mr.  Smalley,  who  kept  open 
a  breathing-space  round  us,  my  companion  and  myself 
thought  we  should  have  been  asphyxiated. 

The  company  was  interested,  as  some  of  my  readers 
may  be,  to  know  what  were  the  attractions  offered  to 
the  visitors  besides  that  of  meeting  the  courteous  en- 
tertainers and  their  distinguished  guests.  I  cannot 
give  these  at  length,  for  each  part  of  the  show  is  in- 
troduced in  the  programme  with  apt  quotations  and 
pleasantries,  which  enlivened  the  catalogue.  There 
were  eleven  stalls,  "  conducted  on  the  cooperative 
principle  of  division  of  profits  and  interest ;  they  re- 
tain the  profits,  and  you  take  a  good  deal  of  interest, 
we  hope,  in  their  success." 

Stall  No.  1.   Edisoniana,  or  the  Phonograph.     Alluded  to  by 
the  Roman  Poet  as  Vox,  et  prceterea  nihil. 

Stall  No.  2.   Money-changing. 

Stall  No.  3.   Programmes  and  General  Enquiries. 

Stall  No.  4.   Roses. 

A  rose  by  any  other  name,  etc.  Get  one.  You 
can't  expect  to  smell  one  without  buying  it,  but 
you  may  buy  one  without  smelling  it. 

Stall  No.  5.    Lasenby  Liberty  Stall. 

(I  cannot  explain  this.  Probably  articles  from 
Liberty's  famous  establishment.) 

Stall  No.  6.   Historical  Costumes  and  Ceramics. 
Stall  No.  7.   The  Fish-pond. 
Stall  No.  8.   Varieties. 
Stall  No.  9.   Bookstall. 

(Books)   "  highly  recommended  for  insomnia  ; 

friends  we  never  speak  to,  and  always  cut  if  we 

want  to  know  them  well." 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  277 

Stall  No.  10.  Icelandic. 

"  Mrs.  Magnusson,  who  is  devoted  to  the  North 
Pole  and  all  its  works,  will  thaw  your  sympa- 
thies, enlighten  your  minds,"  etc.,  etc. 

Stall  No.  11.  Call  Office. 

All  you  buy  may  be  left  at  the  stalls,  ticketed. 
A  duplicate  ticket  will  be  handed  to  you  on 
leaving.  Present  your  duplicate  at  the  Call 
Office. 

At  9.45,  First  Concert. 

At  10.45,  An  Address  of  Welcome  by  Rev.  H.  R.  Haweis. 

At  11  P.  M.,  Bird-warbling  Interlude  by  Miss  Mabel  Stephen- 
son,  U.  S.  A. 

At  11.20,  Second  Concert. 

NOTICE  ! 

Three  Great  Pictures. 

LORD  TENNYSON  .  G.  F.  Watts,  R.  A. 
JOHN  STUART  MILL  G.  F.  Watts,  R.  A. 
JOSEPH  GARIBALDI  Sig.  Rondi, 

NOTICE  ! 
A  Famous  Violin. 

A  world-famed  Stradivarius  Violin,  for  which  Mr.  Hill,  of 
Bond  Street,  gave  £1000,  etc.,  etc. 

REFRESHMENTS. 

Tickets  for  Tea,  Coffee,  Sandwiches,  Iced  Drinks,  or  Ices, 
Sixpence  each,  etc.,  etc. 

I  hope  my  American  reader  is  pleased  and  inter- 
ested by  this  glimpse  of  the  way  in  which  they  do 
these  things  in  London. 

There  is  something  very  pleasant  about  all  this,  but 
what  specially  strikes  me  is  a  curious  flavor  of  city 
provincialism.  There  are  little  centres  in  the  heart 
of  great  cities,  just  as  there  are  small  fresh-water 
ponds  in  great  islands  with  the  salt  sea  roaring  all 
round  them,  and  bays  and  creeks  penetrating  them 


278  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

as  briny  as  the  ocean  itself.  Irving  has  given  a  charm- 
ing picture  of  such  a  ^asi-provincial  centre  in  one  of 
his  papers  in  the  Sketch-Book,  —  the  one  with  the 
title  "  Little  Britain."  London  is  a  nation  of  itself, 
and  contains  provinces,  districts,  foreign  communities, 
villages,  parishes,  —  innumerable  lesser  centres,  with 
their  own  distinguishing  characteristics,  habits,  pur- 
suits, languages,  social  laws,  as  much  isolated  from 
each  other  as  if  "  mountains  interposed  "  made  the 
separation  between  them.  One  of  these  lesser  centres 
is  that  over  which  my  friend  Mr.  Haweis  presides  as 
spiritual  director.  Chelsea  has  been  made  famous  as 
the  home  of  many  authors  and  artists,  —  above  all. 
as  the  residence  of  Carlyle  during  the  greater  part  of 
his  life.  Its  population,  like  that  of  most  respectable 
suburbs,  must  belong  mainly  to  the  kind  of  citizens 
which  resembles  in  many  ways  the  better  class,  —  as 
we  sometimes  dare  to  call  it,  —  of  one  of  our  thriving 
New  England  towns.  How  many  John  Gilpins  there 
must  be  in  this  population,  —  citizens  of  "  famous 
London  town,"  but  living  with  the  simplicity  of  the 
inhabitants  of  our  inland  villages !  In  the  mighty 
metropolis  where  the  wealth  of  the  world  displays  it- 
self they  practise  their  snug  economies,  enjoy  their 
simple  pleasures,  and  look  upon  ice-cream  as  a  luxury, 
just  as  if  they  were  living  on  the  banks  of  the  Con- 
necticut or  the  Housatonic,  in  regions  where  the  sum- 
mer locusts  of  the  great  cities  have  not  yet  settled  on 
the  verdure  of  the  native  inhabitants.  It  is  delight- 
ful to  realize  the  fact  that  while  the  West  End  of 
London  is  flaunting  its  splendors  and  the  East  End 
in  struggling  with  its  miseries,  these  great  middle- 
class  communities  are  living  as  comfortable,  unpre- 
tending lives  as  if  they  were  in  one  of  our  thriving 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  279 

townships  in  the  huckleberry  districts.  Human  beings 
are  wonderfully  alike  when  they  are  placed  in  similar 
conditions. 

We  were  sitting  together  in  a  very  quiet  way  over 
our  teacups.  The  young  Doctor,  who  was  in  the  best 
of  spirits,  had  been  laughing  and  chatting  with  the 
two  Annexes.  The  Tutor,  who  always  sits  next  to 
Number  Five  of  late,  had  been  conversing  with  her  in 
rather  low  tones.  The  rest  of  us  had  been  soberly 
sipping  our  tea,  and  when  the  Doctor  and  the  An- 
nexes stopped  talking  there  was  one  of  those  dead 
silences  which  are  sometimes  so  hard  to  break  in 
upon,  and  so  awkward  while  they  last.  All  at  once 
Number  Seven  exploded  in  a  loud  laugh,  which  star- 
tled everybody  at  the  table. 

What  is  it  that  sets  you  laughing  so  ?  said  I. 

"  I  was  thinking,"  Number  Seven  replied,  "  of  what 
you  said  the  other  day  of  poetry  being  only  the  ashes 
of  emotion.  I  believe  that  some  people  are  disposed 
to  dispute  the  proposition.  I  have  been  putting  your 
doctrine  to  the  test.  In  doing  it  I  made  some  rhymes, 
—  the  first  and  only  ones  I  ever  made.  I  will  sup- 
pose a  case  of  very  exciting  emotion,  and  see  whether 
it  would  probably  take  the  form  of  poetry  or  prose. 
You  are  suddenly  informed  that  your  house  is  on  fire, 
and  have  to  scramble  out  of  it,  without  stopping  to  tie 
your  neckcloth  neatly  or  to  put  a  flower  in  your  but- 
tonhole. Do  you  think  a  poet  turning  out  in  his 
night-dress,  and  looking  on  while  the  flames  were 
swallowing  his  home  and  all  its  contents,  would 
express  himself  in  this  style  ? 

My  house  is  on  fire  ! 
Bring  me  my  lyre  ! 
Like  the  flames  that  rise  heavenward  my  song  shall  aspire  ! 


280  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

He  would  n't  do  any  such  thing,  and  you  know  he 
wouldn't.  He  would  yell  Fire!  Fire!  with  all  his 
might.  Not  much  rhyming  for  him  just  yet !  Wait 
until  the  fire  is  put  out,  and  he  has  had  time  to  look 
at  the  charred  timbers  and  the  ashes  of  his  home,  and 
in  the  course  of  a  week  he  may  possibly  spin  a  few 
rhymes  about  it.  Or  suppose  he  was  making  an  offer 
of  his  hand  and  heart,  do  you  think  he  would  declaim 
a  versified  proposal  to  his  Amanda,  or  perhaps  write 
an  impromptu  on  the  back  of  his  hat  while  he  knelt 
before  her  ? 

My  beloved,  to  you 
I  will  always  be  true. 
Oh,  pray  make  me  happy,  my  love,  do  !  do  !  do  ! 

What  would  Amanda  think  of  a  suitor  who  courted 
her  with  a  rhyming  dictionary  in  his  pocket  to  help 
him  make  love  ?  " 

You  are  right,  said  I,  —  there  's  nothing  in  the 
world  like  rhymes  to  cool  off  a  man's  passion.  You 
look  at  a  blacksmith  working  on  a  bit  of  iron  or  steel. 
Bright  enough  it  looked  while  it  was  on  the  hearth, 
in  the  midst  of  the  sea-coal,  the  great  bellows  blowing 
away,  and  the  rod  or  the  horse-shoe  as  red  or  as  white 
as  the  burning  coals.  How  it  fizzes  as  it  goes  into 
the  trough  of  water,  and  how  suddenly  all  the  glow 
is  gone !  It  looks  black  and  cold  enough  now.  Just 
so  with  your  passionate  incandescence.  It  is  all  well 
while  it  burns  and  scintillates  in  your  emotional  cen- 
tres, without  articulate  and  connected  expression ;  but 
the  minute  you  plunge  it  into  the  rhyme-trough  it 
cools  down,  and  becomes  as  dead  and  dull  as  the  cold 
horse-shoe.  It  is  true  that  if  you  lay  it  cold  on  the 
anvil  and  hammer  away  on  it  for  a  while  it  warms  up 
somewhat.  Just  so  with  the  rhyming  fellow,  —  he 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  281 

pounds  away  on  his  verses  and  they  warm  up  a  little. 
But  don't  let  him  think  that  this  afterglow  of  compo- 
sition is  the  same  thing  as  the  original  passion.  That 
found  expression  in  a  few  oh,  oA's,  di  dt's,  eheu, 
eheu's,  helas,  helas's,  and  when  the  passion  had  burned 
itself  out  you  got  the  rhymed  verses,  which,  as  I  have 
said,  are  its  ashes. 

I  thanked  Number  Seven  for  his  poetical  illustra- 
tion of  my  thesis.  There  is  great  good  to  be  got  out 
of  a  squinting  brain,  if  one  only  knows  how  to  profit 
by  it.  We  see  only  one  side  of  the  moon,  you  know, 
but  a  fellow  with  a  squinting  brain  seems  now  and 
then  to  get  a  peep  at  the  other  side.  I  speak  meta- 
phorically. He  takes  new  and  startling  views  of 
things  we  have  always  looked  at  in  one  particular 
aspect.  There  is  a  rule  invariably  to  be  observed 
with  one  of  this  class  of  intelligences :  Never  contra- 
dict a  man  with  a  squinting  brain.  I  say  a  man, 
because  I  do  not  think  that  squinting  brains  are 
nearly  so  common  in  women  as  they  are  in  men.  The 
"  eccentrics  "  are,  I  think,  for  the  most  part  of  the 
male  sex. 

That  leads  me  to  say  that  persons  with  a  strong 
instinctive  tendency  to  contradiction  are  apt  to  be- 
come unprofitable  companions.  Our  thoughts  are 
plants  that  never  flourish  in  inhospitable  soils  or  chill- 
ing atmospheres.  They  are  all  started  under  glass, 
so  to  speak ;  that  is,  sheltered  and  fostered  in  our 
own  warm  and  sunny  consciousness.  They  must 
expect  some  rough  treatment  when  we  lift  the  sash 
from  the  frame  and  let  the  outside  elements  in  upon 
them.  They  can  bear  the  rain  and  the  breezes,  and 
be  all  the  better  for  them  ;  but  perpetual  contradiction 
is  a  pelting  hailstorm,  which  spoils  their  growth  and 
tends  to  kill  them  out  altogether. 


282  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

Now  stop  and  consider  a  moment.  Are  not  almost 
all  brains  a  little  wanting  in  bilateral  symmetry  ?  Do 
you  not  find  in  persons  whom  you  love,  whom  you 
esteem,  and  even  admire,  some  marks  of  obliquity  in 
mental  vision?  Aie  there  not  some  subjects  in  look- 
ing at  which  it  seems  to  you  impossible  that  they 
should  ever  see  straight?  Are  there  not  moods  ir. 
which  it  seems  to  you  that  they  are  disposed  to  see  all 
things  out  of  plumb  and  in  false  relations  with  each 
other?  If  you  answer  these  questions  in  the  affirma- 
tive, then  you  will  be  glad  of  a  hint  as  to  the  method 
of  dealing  with  your  friends  who  have  a  touch  of  cere- 
bral strabismus,  or  are  liable  to  occasional  paroxysms 
of  perversity.  Let  them  have  their  head.  Get  them 
talking  on  subjects  that  interest  them.  As  a  rule, 
nothing  is  more  likely  to  serve  this  purpose  than  let- 
ting them  talk  about  themselves;  if  authors,  about 
their  writings  ;  if  artists,  about  their  pictures  or  stat- 
ues ;  and  generally  on  whatever  they  have  most  pride 
in  and  think  most  of  their  own  relations  with. 

Perhaps  you  will  not  at  first  sight  agree  with  me  in 
thinking  that  slight  mental  obliquity  is  as  common  as 
I  suppose.  An  analogy  may  have  some  influence  on 
your  belief  in  this  matter.  Will  you  take  the  trouble 
to  ask  your  tailor  how  many  persons  have  their  two 
shoulders  of  the  same  height?  I  think  he  will  tell 
you  that  the  majority  of  his  customers  show  a  distinct 
difference  of  height  on  the  two  sides.  Will  you  ask 
a  portrait-painter  how  many  of  those  who  sit  to  him 
have  both  sides  of  their  faces  exactly  alike?  I  be- 
lieve he  will  tell  you  that  one  side  is  always  a  little 
better  than  the  other.  What  will  your  hatter  say 
about  the  two  sides  of  the  head  ?  Do  you  see  equally 
well  with  both  eyes,  and  hear  equally  well  with  both 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  288 

ears  ?  Few  persons  past  middle  age  will  pretend  that 
they  do.  Why  should  the  two  halves  of  a  brain  not 
show  a  natural  difference,  leading  to  confusion  of 
thought,  and  very  possibly  to  that  instinct  of  contra- 
diction of  which  I  was  speaking?  A  great  deal  of 
time  is  lost  in  profitless  conversation,  and  a  good 
deal  of  ill  temper  frequently  caused,  by  not  consider- 
ing these  organic  and  practically  insuperable  condi- 
tions. In  dealing  with  them,  acquiescence  is  the  best 
of  palliations  and  silence  the  sovereign  specific. 

I  have  been  the  reporter,  as  you  have  seen,  of  my 
own  conversation  and  that  of  the  other  Teacups.  I 
have  told  some  of  the  circumstances  of  their  personal 
history,  and  interested,  as  I  hope,  here  and  there  a 
reader  in  the  fate  of  different  members  of  our  com- 
pany. Here  are  our  pretty  Delilah  and  our  Doctor 
provided  for.  We  may  take  it  for  granted  that  it  will 
not  be  very  long  that  the  young  couple  will  have  to 
wait ;  for,  as  I  have  told  you  all,  the  Doctor  is  cer- 
tainly getting  into  business,  and  bids  fair  to  have  a 
thriving  practice  before  he  saddles  his  nose  with  an 
eyeglass  and  begins  to  tfiink  of  a  pair  of  spectacles. 
So  that  part  of  our  little  domestic  drama  is  over,  and 
we  can  only  wish  the  pair  that  is  to  be  all  manner 
of  blessings  consistent  with  a  reasonable  amount  of 
health  in  the  community  on  whose  ailings  must 
depend  their  prosperity. 

All  our  thoughts  are  now  concentrated  on  the  rela- 
tion existing  betwen  Number  Five  and  the  Tutor. 
That  there  is  some  profound  instinctive  impulse  which 
is  drawing  them  closer  together  no  one  who  watches 
them  can  for  a  moment  doubt.  There  are  two  prin- 
ciples of  attraction  which  bring  different  natures  to- 


284  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

gether :  that  in  which  the  two  natures  closely  resem- 
ble each  other,  and  that  in  which  one  is  complemen- 
tary of  the  other.  In  the  first  case,  they  coalesce,  as 
do  two  drops  of  water  or  of  mercury,  and  become  in- 
timately blended  as  soon  as  they  touch ;  in  the  other, 
they  rush  together  as  an  acid  and  an  alkali  unite,  — 
predestined  from  eternity  to  find  all  they  most  needed 
in  each  other.  What  is  the  condition  of  things  in  the 
growing  intimacy  of  Number  Five  and  the  Tutor? 
He  is  many  years  her  junior,  as  we  know.  Both  of 
them  look  that  fact  squarely  in  the  face.  The  pre- 
sumption is  against  the  union  of  two  persons  under 
these  circumstances.  Presumptions  are  strong  obsta- 
cles against  any  result  we  wish  to  attain,  but  half  our 
work  in  life  is  to  overcome  them.  A  great  many  re- 
sults look  in  the  distance  like  six-foot  walls,  and  when 
we  get  nearer  prove  to  be  only  five-foot  hurdles,  to  be 
leaped  over  or  knocked  down.  Twenty  years  from 
now  she  may  be  a  vigorous  and  active  old  woman,  and 
he  a  middle-aged,  half-worn-out  invalid,  like  so  many 
overworked  scholars.  Everything  depends  on  the 
number  of  drops  of  the  elixir  vitas  which  Nature  min- 
gled in  the  nourishment  she  administered  to  the  em- 
bryo before  it  tasted  its  mother's  milk.  Think  of 
Cleopatra,  the  bewitching  old  mischief-maker ;  think 
of  Ninon  de  L'Enclos,  whose  own  son  fell  desperately 
in  love  with  her,  not  knowing  the  relation  in  which 
she  stood  to  him ;  think  of  Dr.  Johnson's  friend, 
Mrs.  Thrale,  afterward  Mrs.  Piozzi,  who  at  the  age 
of  eighty  was  full  enough  of  life  to  be  making  love 
ardently  and  persistently  to  Conway,  the  handsome 
young  actor.  I  can  readily  believe  that  Number  Five 
will  outlive  the  Tutor,  even  if  he  is  fortunate  enough 
to  succeed  in  storming  that  Ehrenbreitstein,  — -  say 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  285 

rather  in  winning  his  way  into  the  fortress  through 
gates,  that  open  to  him  of  their  own  accord.  If  he 
fails  in  his  siege,  I  do  really  believe  he  will  die  early  ; 
not  of  a  broken  heart,  exactly,  but  of  a  heart  starved, 
with  the  food  it  was  craving  close  to  it,  but  unattain- 
able. I  have,  therefore,  a  deep  interest  in  knowing 
how  Number  Five  and  the  Tutor  are  getting  along  to- 
gether. Is  there  any  danger  of  one  or  the  other  grow- 
ing tired  of  the  intimacy,  and  becoming  willing  to  get 
rid  of  it,  like  a  garment  which  has  shrunk  and  grown 
too  tight  ?  Is  it  likely  that  some  other  attraction  may 
come  in  to  disturb  the  existing  relation  ?  The  prob- 
lem is  to  my  mind  not  only  interesting,  but  exception- 
ally curious.  You  remember  the  story  of  Cymon  and 
Iphigenia  as  Dryden  tells  it.  The  poor  youth  has  the 
capacity  of  loving,  but  it  lies  hidden  in  his  undevel- 
oped nature.  All  at  once  he  comes  upon  the  sleeping 
beauty,  and  is  awakened  by  her  charms  to  a  hitherto 
unfelt  consciousness.  With  the  advent  of  the  new 
passion  all  his  dormant  faculties  start  into  life,  and 
the  seeming  simpleton  becomes  the  bright  and  intelli- 
gent lover.  The  case  of  Number  Five  is  as  different 
from  that  of  Cymon  as  it  could  well  be.  All  her 
faculties  are  wide  awake,  but  one  emotional  side 
of  her  nature  has  never  been  called  into  active  exer- 
cise. Why  has  she  never  been  in  love  with  any  one 
of  her  suitors  ?  Because  she  liked  too  many  of  them. 
Do  you  happen  to  remember  a  poem  printed  among 
these  papers,  entitled  "  I  Like  You  and  I  Love  You  "  ? 
No  one  of  the  poems  which  have  been  placed  in  the 
urn,  —  that  is,  in  the  silver  sugar-bowl,  —  has  had  any 
name  attached  to  it ;  but  you  could  guess  pretty  nearly 
who  was  the  author  of  some  of  them,  certainly  of  the 
one  just  referred  to.  Number  Five  was  attracted  to 


286  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

the  Tutor  from  the  first  time  he  spoke  to  her.  She 
dreamed  about  him  that  night,  and  nothing  idealizes 
and  renders  fascinating  one  in  whom  we  have  already 
an  interest  like  dreaming  of  him  or  of  her.  Many  a 
calm  suitor  has  been  made  passionate  by  a  dream  ; 
many  a  passionate  lover  has  been  made  wild  and  half 
beside  himself  by  a  dream  ;  and  now  and  then  an  in- 
fatuated but  hapless  lover,  waking  from  a  dream  of 
bliss  to  a  cold  reality  of  wretchedness,  has  helped  him 
self  to  eternity  before  he  was  summoned  to  the  table. 

Since  Number  Five  had  dreamed  about  the  Tutor, 
he  had  been  more  in  her  waking  thoughts  than  she 
was  willing  to  acknowledge.  These  thoughts  were 
vague,  it  is  true,  —  emotions,  perhaps,  rather  than 
worded  trains  of  ideas ;  but  she  was  conscious  of  a 
pleasing  excitement  as  his  name  or  his  image  floated 
across  her  consciousness  ;  she  sometimes  sighed  as  she 
looked  over  the  last  passage  they  had  read  from  the 
same  book,  and  sometimes  when  they  were  together 
they  were  silent  too  long,  —  too  long !  What  were 
they  thinking  of  ? 

And  so  it  was  all  as  plain  sailing  for  Number  Five 
and  the  young  Tutor  as  it  had  been  for  Delilah  and 
the  young  Doctor,  was  it  ?  Do  you  think  so  ?  Then 
you  do  not  understand  Number  Five.  Many  a  woman 
has  as  many  atmospheric  rings  about  her  as  the  planet 
Saturn.  Three  are  easily  to  be  recognized.  First, 
ihere  is  the  wide  ring  of  attraction  which  draws  into 
itself  all  that  once  cross  its  outer  border.  These  re- 
volve about  her  without  ever  coming  any  nearer.  Next 
is  the  inner  ring  of  attraction.  Those  who  come  within 
its  irresistible  influence  are  drawn  so  close  that  it 
seems  as  if  they  must  become  one  with  her  sooner  or 
later.  But  within  this  ring  is  another,  —  an  atmos* 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  287 

pheric  girdle,  one  of  repulsion,  which  love,  no  matter 
how  enterprising,  no  matter  how  prevailing  or  how  in- 
sinuating, has  never  passed,  and,  if  we  judge  of  what 
is  to  be  by  what  has  been,  never  will.  Perhaps  Na- 
ture loved  Number  Five  so  well  that  she  grudged  her 
to  any  mortal  man,  and  gave  her  this  inner  girdle  of 
repulsion  to  guard  her  from  all  who  would  know  her 
too  nearly  and  love  her  too  well.  Sometimes  two  ves- 
sels at  sea  keep  each  other  company  for  a  long  dis- 
tance, it  may  be  during  a  whole  voyage.  Very  pleas- 
ant it  is  to  each  to  have  a  companion  to  exchange 
signals  with  from  time  to  time  ;  to  come  near  enough, 
when  the  winds  are  light,  to  hold  converse  in  ordinary 
tones  from  deck  to  deck;  to  know  that,  in  case  of 
need,  there  is  help  at  hand.  It  is  good  for  them  to  be 
near  each  other,  but  not  good  to  be  too  near.  Woe  is 
to  them  if  they  touch !  The  wreck  of  one  or  both  is 
likely  to  be  the  consequence.  And  so  two  well- 
equipped  and  heavily  freighted  natures  may  be  the 
best  of  companions  to  each  other,  and  yet  must  never 
attempt  to  come  into  closer  union.  Is  this  the 
condition  of  affairs  between  Number  Five  and  the 
Tutor  ?  I  hope  not,  for  I  want  them  to  be  joined  to- 
gether in  that  dearest  of  intimacies,  which,  if  founded 
in  true  affinity,  is  the  nearest  approach  to  happiness  to 
be  looked  for  in  our  mortal  experience.  We  must 
wait.  The  Teacups  will  meet  once  more  before  the 
circle  is  broken,  and  we  may,  perhaps,  find  the  solu- 
tion of  the  question  we  have  raised. 

In  the  mean  time,  our  young  Doctor  is  playing 
truant  oftener  than  ever.  He  has  brought  Avis,  —  if 
we  must  call  her  so,  and  not  Delilah,  —  several  times 
to  take  tea  with  us.  It  means  something,  in  these 
days,  to  graduate  from  one  of  our  first-class  academies 


288  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

or  collegiate  schools.  I  shall  never  forget  my  first 
visit  to  one  of  these  institutions.  How  much  its  pupils 
know,  I  said,  which  I  was  never  taught,  and  have  never 
learned  1  I  was  fairly  frightened  to  see  what  a  teach 
ing  apparatus  was  provided  for  them.  I  should  think 
the  first  thing  to  be  done  with  most  of  the  husbands 
they  are  likely  to  get  would  be  to  put  them  through 
a  course  of  instruction.  The  young  wives  must  find 
their  lords  wof  ully  ignorant,  in  a  large  proportion  of 
cases.  When  the  wife  has  educated  the  husband  to 
such  a  point  that  she  can  invite  him  to  work  out  a 
problem  in  the  higher  mathematics  or  to  perform  a 
difficult  chemical  analysis  with  her  as  his  collaborator, 
as  less  instructed  dames  ask  their  husbands  to  play 
a  game  of  checkers  or  backgammon,  they  can  have 
delightful  and  instructive  evenings  together.  I  hope 
our  young  Doctor  will  take  kindly  to  his  wife's  (that 
is  to  be)  teachings. 

When  the  following  verses  were  taken  out  of  the 
urn,  the  Mistress  asked  me  to  hand  the  manuscript  to 
the  young  Doctor  to  read.  I  noticed  that  he  did  not 
keep  his  eyes  very  closely  fixed  on  the  paper.  It 
seemed  as  if  he  could  have  recited  the  lines  without 
referring  to  the  manuscript  at  all. 

AT  THE  TURN  OF  THE  ROAD. 

The  glory  has  passed  from  the  goldenrod's  plume, 
The  purple-hued  asters  still  linger  in  bloom  ; 
The  birch  is  bright  yellow,  the  sumachs  are  red, 
The  maples  like  torches  aflame  overhead. 

Bnt  what  if  the  joy  of  the  summer  is  past, 
And  winter's  wild  herald  is  blowing  his  blast  ? 
For  me  dull  November  is  sweeter  than  May, 
For  my  love  is  its  sunshine,  —  she  meets  me  to-day  ! 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  289 

Will  she  come  ?     Will  the  ring-dove  return  to  her  nest  ? 
Will  the  needle  swing  back  from  the  east  or  the  west  ? 
At  tin  stroke  of  the  hour  she  will  be  at  her  gate  ; 
A  friend  may  prove  laggard,  —  love  never  comes  late. 

Do  I  see  her  afar  in  the  distance  ?     Not  yet. 
Too  early  !     Too  early  !     She  could  not  forget ! 
When  I  cross  the  old  bridge  where  the  brook  overflowed. 
She  will  flash  full  in  sight  at  the  turn  of  the  road. 

I  pass  the  low  wall  where  the  ivy  entwines  ; 

I  tread  the  brown  pathway  that  leads  through  the  pines  ; 

I  haste  by  the  boulder  that  lies  in  the  field, 

Where  her  promise  at  parting  was  lovingly  sealed. 

Will  she  come  by  the  hillside  or  round  through  the  wood  ? 
Will  she  wear  her  brown  dress  or  her  mantle  and  hood  ? 
The  minute  draws  near,  —  but  her  watch  may  go  wrong  ; 
My  heart  will  be  asking,  What  keeps  her  so  long  ? 

Why  doubt  for  a  moment  ?    More  shame  if  I  do  ! 
Why  question  ?    Why  tremble  ?     Are  angels  more  true  ? 
She  would  come  to  the  lover  who  calls  her  his  own 
Though  she  trod  in  the  track  of  a  whirling  cyclone  ! 

—  I  crossed  the  old  bridge  ere  the  minute  had  passed. 
I  looked  :  lo  !  my  Love  stood  before  me  at  last. 
Her  eyes,  how  they  sparkled,  her  cheeks,  how  they  glowed, 
As  we  met,  face  to  face,  at  the  turn  of  the  road  ! 


xn 

THERE  was  a  great  tinkling  of  teaspoons  the  other 
evening,  when  I  took  my  seat  at  the  table,  where  all 
The  Teacups  were  gathered  before  my  entrance.  The 
whole  company  arose,  and  the  Mistress,  speaking  for 
them,  expressed  the  usual  sentiment  appropriate  to 
such  occasions.  "  Many  happy  returns  "  is  the  cus- 
tomary formula.  No  matter  if  the  object  of  this  kind 
wish  is  a  centenarian,  it  is  quite  safe  to  assume  that 
he  is  ready  and  very  willing  to  accept  as  many  more 
years  as  the  disposing  powers  may  see  fit  to  allow 
him. 

The  meaning  of  it  all  was  that  this  was  my  birth- 
day. My  friends,  near  and  distant,  had  seen  fit  to 
remember  it,  and  to  let  me  know  in  various  pleasant 
ways  that  they  had  not  forgotten  it.  The  tables  were 
adorned  with  flowers.  Gifts  of  pretty  and  pleasing 
objects  were  displayed  on  a  side  table.  A  great  green 
wreath,  which  must  have  cost  the  parent  oak  a  large 
fraction  of  its  foliage,  was  an  object  of  special  admira- 
tion. Baskets  of  flowers  which  had  half  unpeopled 
greenhouses,  large  bouquets  of  roses,  fragrant  bunches 
of  pinks,  and  many  beautiful  blossoms  I  am  not  bota- 
nist enough  to  name  had  been  coming  in  upon  me  all 
day  long.  Many  of  these  offerings  were  brought  by 
the  givers  in  person ;  many  came  with  notes  as  fra- 
grant with  good  wishes  as  the  flowers  they  accompa- 
nied with  their  natural  perftaies. 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  291 

How  old  was  I,  The  Dictator,  once  known  by 
another  equally  audacious  title,  —  I,  the  recipient  of 
all  tnc.se  favors  and  honors  ?  I  had  cleared  the  eight- 
barred  gate,  which  few  come  in  sight  of,  and  fewer, 
far  fewer,  go  over,  a  year  before.  I  was  a  trespasser 
on  the  domain  belonging  to  another  generation.  The 
children  of  my  coevals  were  fast  getting  gray  and 
bald,  and  their  children  beginning  to  look  upon  the 
world  as  belonging  to  them,  and  not  to  their  sires  and 
grandsires.  After  that  leap  over  the  tall  barrier,  it 
looks  like  a  kind  of  impropriety  to  keep  on  as  if  one 
were  still  of  a  reasonable  age.  Sometimes  it  seems  to 
me  almost  of  the  nature  of  a  misdemeanor  to  be  wan- 
dering about  in  the  preserve  which  the  fleshless  game- 
keeper guards  so  jealously.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
I  remember  that  men  of  science  have  maintained  that 
the  natural  life  of  man  is  nearer  fivescore  than  three- 
score years  and  ten.  I  always  think  of  a  familiar  ex- 
perience which  I  bring  from  the  French  cq/es,  well 
known  to  me  in  my  early  manhood.  One  of  the  illus- 
trated papers  of  my  Parisian  days  tells  it  pleasantly 
enough. 

A  guest  of  the  establishment  is  sitting  at  his  little 
table.  He  has  just  had  his  coffee,  and  the  waiter  is 
serving  him  with  his  petit  verre.  Most  of  my  readers 
know  very  well  what  a  petit  verre  is,  but  there  may 
be  here  and  there  a  virtuous  abstainer  from  alcoholic 
fluids,  living  among  the  bayberries  and  the  sweet 
ferns,  who  is  not  aware  that  the  words,  as  commonly 
used,  signify  a  small  glass  —  a  very  small  glass  —  of 
spirit,  commonly  brandy,  taken  as  a  chouse-cafe^  or 
coffee-chaser.  [This  drinking  of  brandy,  "  neat,"  I 
may  remark  by  the  way,  is  not  quite  so  bad  as  it 
looks.  Whiskey  or  rum  taken  unmixrd  from  a  turn- 


292  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

bier  is  a  knock-down  blow  to  temperance,  but  the  little 
thimbleful  of  brandy,  or  Chartreuse,  or  Maraschino,  is 
only,  as  it  were,  tweaking  the  nose  of  teetotalism.] 
Well,  —  to  go  back  behind  our  brackets,  —  the  guest 
is  calling  to  the  waiter,  "Garponf  et  le  bain  de 
pieds  I "  Waiter !  and  the  foot-bath  !  —  The  little 
glass  stands  in  a  small  tin  saucer  or  shallow  dish,  and 
the  custom  is  to  more  than  fill  the  glass,  so  that  some 
extra  brandy  runs  over  into  this  tin  saucer  or  cup- 
plate,  to  the  manifest  gain  of  the  consumer. 

Life  is  a  petit  verre  of  a  very  peculiar  kind  of 
spirit.  At  seventy  years  it  used  to  be  said  that  the 
little  glass  was  full.  We  should  be  more  apt  to  put 
it  at  eighty  in  our  day,  while  Gladstone  and  Tennyson 
and  our  own  Whittier  are  breathing,  moving,  think- 
ing, writing,  speaking,  in  the  green  preserve  belong- 
ing to  their  children  and  grandchildren,  and  Bancroft 
is  keeping  watch  of  the  gamekeeper  in  the  distance. 
But,  returning  resolutely  to  the  petit  verre,  I  am  will- 
ing to  concede  that  all  after  fourscore  is  the  bain  de 
pieds,  —  the  slopping  over,  so  to  speak,  of  the  full 
measure  of  life.  I  remember  that  one  who  was  very 
near  and  dear  to  me,  and  who  lived  to  a  great  age,  so 
that  the  ten-barred  gate  of  the  century  did  not  look 
very  far  off,  would  sometimes  apologize  in  a  very 
sweet,  natural  way  for  lingering  so  long  to  be  a  care 
and  perhaps  a  burden  to  her  children,  themselves  get- 
ting well  into  years.  It  is  not  hard  to  understand  the 
feeling,  never  less  called  for  than  it  was  in  the  case  of 
that  beloved  nonagenarian.  I  have  known  few  per- 
sons, young  or  old,  more  sincerely  and  justly  regretted 
than  the  gentle  lady  whose  memory  comes  up  before 
me  as  I  write. 

Oh,  if  we  could  all  go  out  of  flower  as  gracefully. 


OVER   THE   TEACUPS.  293 

as  pleasingly,  as  we  come  into  blossom !  I  always 
think  of  the  morning-glory  as  the  loveliest  example  of 
a  graceful  yielding  to  the  inevitable.  It  is  beautiful 
before  its  twisted  corolla  opens ;  it  is  comely  as  it 
folds  its  petals  inward,  when  its  brief  hours  of  perfec- 
tion are  over.  Women  find  it  easier  than  men  to 
grow  old  in  a  becoming  way.  A  very  old  lady  who 
has  kept  something,  it  may  be  a  great  deal,  of  her 
youthful  feelings,  who  is  daintily  cared  for,  who  is 
grateful  for  the  attentions  bestowed  upon  her,  and 
enters  into  the  spirit  of  the  young  lives  that  surround 
her,  is  as  precious  to  those  who  love  her  as  a  gem  in 
an  antique  setting,  the  fashion  of  which  has  long  gone 
by,  but  which  leaves  the  jewel  the  color  and  bright- 
ness which  are  its  inalienable  qualities.  With  old 
men  it  is  too  often  different.  They  do  not  belong  so 
much  indoors  as  women  do.  They  have  no  pretty 
little  manual  occupations.  The  old  lady  knits  or 
stitches  so  long  as  her  eyes  and  fingers  will  let  her. 
The  old  man  smokes  his  pipe,  but  does  not  know  what 
to  do  with  his  fingers,  unless  he  plays  upon  some 
instrument,  or  has  a  mechanical  turn  which  finds  busi- 
ness for  them. 

But  the  old  writer,  I  said  to  The  Teacups,  as  I  say 
to  you,  my  readers,  labors  under  one  special  difficulty, 
which  I  am  thinking  of  and  exemplifying  at  this  mo- 
ment. He  is  constantly  tending  to  reflect  upon  and 
discourse  about  his  own  particular  stage  of  life.  He 
feels  that  he  must  apologize  for  his  intrusion  upon  the 
time  and  thoughts  of  a  generation  which  he  naturally 
supposes  must  be  tired  of  him,  if  they  ever  had  any 
considerable  regard  for  him.  Now,  if  the  world  of 
readers  hates  anything  it  sees  in  print,  it  is  apology. 
If  what  one  has  to  say  is  worth  saying,  he  need  not 


294  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

beg  pardon  for  saying  it.  If  it  is  not  worth  saying  — 
I  will  not  finish  the  sentence.  But  it  is  so  hard  to 
resist  the  temptation,  notwithstanding  that  the  ter- 
rible line  beginning  "  Superfluous  lags  the  veteran  " 
is  always  repeating  itself  in  his  dull  ear ! 

What  kind  of  audience  or  reading  parish  is  a  man 
who  secured  his  constituency  in  middle  life,  or  before 
that  period,  to  expect  when  he  has  reached  the  age  of 
threescore  and  twenty?  His  coevals  have  dropped 
away  by  scores  and  tens,  and  he  sees  only  a  few  units 
scattered  about  here  and  there,  like  the  few  heads 
above  the  water  after  a  ship  has  gone  to  pieces. 
Does  he  write  and  publish  for  those  of  his  own  time 
of  life  ?  He  need  not  print  a  large  edition.  Does  he 
hope  to  secure  a  hearing  from  those  who  have  come 
into  the  reading  world  since  his  coevals  ?  They  have 
found  fresher  fields  and  greener  pastures.  Their 
interests  are  in  the  out-door,  active  world.  Some  of 
them  are  circumnavigating  the  planet  while  he  is 
hitching  his  rocking-chair  about  his  hearth-rug.  Some 
are  gazing  upon  the  pyramids  while  he  is  staring  at 
his  andirons.  Some  are  settling  the  tariff  and  fixing 
the  laws  of  suffrage  and  taxation  while  he  is  dozing 
over  the  weather  bulletin,  and  going  to  sleep  over  the 
obituaries  in  his  morning  or  evening  paper. 

Nature  is  wiser  than  we  give  her  credit  for  being  ; 
never  wiser  than  in  her  dealings  with  the  old.  She 
has  no  idea  of  mortifying  them  by  sudden  and  wholly 
unexpected  failure  of  the  chief  servants  of  conscious- 
ness. The  sight,  for  instance,  begins  to  lose  some- 
thing of  its  perfection  long  before  its  deficiency  calls 
the  owner's  special  attention  to  it.  Very  probably, 
the  first  hint  we  have  of  the  change  is  that  a  friend 
makes  the  pleasing  remark  that  we  are  "  playing  the 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  295 

trombone,"  as  he  calls  it ;  that  is,  moving  a  book  we 
are  holding  backward  and  forward,  to  get  the  right 
focal  distance.  Or  it  may  be  we  find  fault  with  the 
lamp  or  the  gas-burner  for  not  giving  so  much  light 
as  it  used  to.  At  last,  somewhere  between  forty  and 
fifty,  we  begin  to  dangle  a  jaunty  pair  of  eye-glasses, 
half  plaything  and  half  necessity.  In  due  time  a  pair 
of  sober,  business-like  spectacles  bestrides  the  nose. 
Old  age  leaps  upon  it  as  his  saddle,  and  rides  triumph- 
ant, unchallenged,  until  the  darkness  comes  which  no 
glasses  can  penetrate.  Nature  is  pitiless  in  carrying 
out  the  universal  sentence,  but  very  pitiful  in  her 
mode  of  dealing  with  the  condemned  on  his  way  to 
the  final  scene.  The  man  who  is  to  be  hanged  always 
has  a  good  breakfast  provided  for  him. 

Do  not  think  that  the  old  look  upon  themselves  as 
the  helpless,  hopeless,  forlorn  creatures  which  they 
seem  to  young  people.  Do  these  young  folks  suppose 
that  all  vanity  dies  out  of  the  natures  of  old  men  and 
old  women  ?  A  dentist  of  olden  time  told  me  that  a 
good-looking  young  man  once  said  to  him,  "  Keep  that 
incisor  presentable,  if  you  can,  till  I  am  fifty,  and  then 
I  sha'n't  care  how  I  look."  I  venture  to  say  that  that 
gentleman  was  as  particular  about  his  personal  ap- 
pearance and  as  proud  of  his  good  looks  at  fifty,  and 
many  years  after  fifty,  as  he  was  in  the  twenties,  when 
he  made  that  speech  to  the  dentist. 

My  dear  friends  around  the  teacups,  and  at  that 
wider  board  where  I  am  now  entertaining,  or  trying 
to  entertain,  my  company,  is  it  not  as  plain  to  you  as 
it  is  to  me  that  I  had  better  leave  such  tasks  as  that 
which  I  am  just  finishing  to  those  who  live  in  a  more 
interesting  period  of  life  than  one  which,  in  the  order 
of  nature,  is  next  door  to  decrepitude  ?  Ought  I  not 


296  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

to  regret  having  undertaken  to  report  the  doings  and 
sayings  of  the  members  of  the  circle  which  you  have 
known  as  The  Teacups  ? 

Dear,  faithful  reader,  whose  patient  eyes  have  fol- 
lowed my  reports  through  these  long  months,  you  and 
I  are  about  parting  company.  Perhaps  you  are  one 
of  those  who  have  known  me  under  another  name,  in 
those  far-off  days  separated  from  these  by  the  red  sea 
of  the  great  national  conflict.  When  you  first  heard 
the  tinkle  of  the  teaspoons,  as  the  table  was  being 
made  ready  for  its  guests,  you  trembled  for  me,  in  the 
kindness  of  your  hearts.  I  do  not  wonder  that  you 
did,  —  I  trembled  for  myself.  But  I  remembered  the 
story  of  Sir  Cloudesley  Shovel,  who  was  seen  all  of  a 
tremor  just  as  he  was  going  into  action.  "  How  is 
this  ?  "  said  a  brother  officer  to  him.  "  Surely  you 
are  not  afraid  ? "  "  No,"  he  answered,  "  but  my 
flesh  trembles  at  the  thought  of  the  dangers  into 
which  my  intrepid  spirit  will  carry  me." 

I  knew  the  risk  of  undertaking  to  carry  through  a 
series  of  connected  papers.  And  yet  I  thought  it  was 
better  to  run  that  risk,  more  manly,  more  sensible, 
than  to  give  way  to  the  fears  which  made  my  flesh 
tremble  as  did  Sir  Cloudesley  Shovel's.  For  myself 
the  labor  has  been  a  distraction,  and  one  which  came 
at  a  time  when  it  was  needed.  Sometimes,  as  in  one 
of  those  poems  recently  published,  —  the  reader  will 
easily  guess  which,  —  the  youthful  spirit  has  come 
over  me  with  such  a  rush  that  it  made  me  feel  just  as 
I  did  when  I  wrote  the  history  of  the  "  One-hoss  Shay  " 
thirty  years  ago.  To  repeat  one  of  my  comparisons, 
it  was  as  if  an  early  fruit  had  ripened  on  a  graft  upon 
an  old,  steady-going  tree,  to  the  astonishment  of  all 
its  later-maturing  products.  I  should  hardly  dare  to 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  297 

say  so  much  as  this  if  I  had  not  heard  a  similar  opin- 
ion expressed  by  others. 

Once  committed  to  my  undertaking,  there  was  no 
turning  back.  It  is  true  that  I  had  said  I  might  stop 
at  any  moment,  but  after  one  or  two  numbers  it 
seemed  as  if  there  were  an  informal  pledge  to  carry 
the  series  on,  as  in  former  cases,  until  I  had  completed 
my  dozen  instalments. 

Writers  and  speakers  have  their  idiosyncrasies, 
their  habits,  their  tricks,  if  you  had  rather  call  them 
so,  as  to  their  ways  of  writing  and  speaking.  There 
is  a  very  old  and  familiar  story,  accompanied  by  a 
feeble  jest,  which  most  of  my  readers  may  probably 
enough  have  met  with  in  Joe  Miller  or  elsewhere.  It 
is  that  of  a  lawyer  who  could  never  make  an  argu- 
ment without  having  a  piece  of  thread  to  work  upon 
with  his  fingers  while  he  was  pleading.  Some  one 
stole  it  from  him  one  day,  and  he  could  not  get  on  at 
all  with  his  speech,  —  he  had  lost  the  thread  of  his 
discourse,  as  the  story  had  it.  Now  this  is  what  I 
myself  once  saw.  It  was  at  a  meeting  where  certain 
grave  matters  were  debated  in  an  assembly  of  profes- 
sional men.  A  speaker,  whom  I  never  heard  before 
or  since,  got  up  and  made  a  long  and  forcible  argu- 
ment. I  do  not  think  he  was  a  lawyer,  but  he  spoke 
as  if  he  had  been  trained  to  talk  to  juries.  He  held 
a  long  string  in  one  hand,  which  he  drew  through  the 
other  hand  incessantly,  as  he  spoke,  just  as  a  shoe- 
maker performs  the  motion  of  waxing  his  thread.  He 
appeared  to  be  dependent  on  this  motion.  The  physi- 
ological significance  of  the  fact  I  suppose  to  be  that 
the  flow  of  what  we  call  the  nervous  current  from  the 
thinking  centre  to  the  organs  of  speech  was  rendered 


298  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

freer  and  easier  by  the  establishment  of  a  simulta- 
neous collateral  nervous  current  to  the  set  of  muscles 
concerned  in  the  action  I  have  described. 

I  do  not  use  a  string  to  help  me  write  or  speak,  but 
I  must  have  its  equivalent.  I  must  have  my  paper 
and  pen  or  pencil  before  me  to  set  my  thoughts  flow- 
ing in  such  form  that  they  can  be  written  continu- 
ously. There  have  been  lawyers  who  could  think  out 
their  whole  argument  in  connected  order  without  a 
single  note.  There  are  authors,  —  and  I  think  there 
are  many,  —  who  can  compose  and  finish  off  a  poem 
or  a  story  without  writing  a  word  of  it  until,  when 
the  proper  time  comes,  they  copy  what  they  carry  in 
their  heads.  I  have  been  told  tliat  Sir  Edwin  Arnold 
thought  out  his  beautiful  "Light  of  Asia"  in  this 
way. 

I  find  the  great  charm  of  writing  consists  in  its 
surprises.  When  one  is  in  the  receptive  attitude  of 
mind,  the  thoughts  which  are  sprung  upon  him,  the 
images  which  flash  through  his  consciousness,  are  a 
delight  and  an  excitement.  I  am  impatient  of  every 
hindrance  in  setting  down  my  thoughts,  —  of  a  pen 
that  will  not  write,  of  ink  that  will  not  flow,  of  paper 
that  will  not  receive  the  ink.  And  here  let  me  pay 
the  tribute  which  I  owe  to  one  of  the  humblest  but 
most  serviceable  of  my  assistants,  especially  in  poet- 
ical composition.  Nothing  seems  more  prosaic  than 
the  stylographic  pen.  It  deprives  the  handwriting  of 
its  beauty,  and  to  some  extent  of  its  individual  char- 
acter. The  brutal  communism  of  the  letters  it  forms 
covers  the  page  it  fills  with  the  most  uniformly  unin- 
teresting characters.  But,  ab.use  it  as  much  as  you 
choose,  there  is  nothing  like  it  for  the  poet,  for  the 
imaginative  writer.  Many  a  fine  flow  of  thought  has 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  299 

been  checked,  perhaps  arrested,  by  the  ill  behavior  of 
a  goose-quill.  Many  an  idea  has  escaped  while  the 
author  .vas  dipping  his  pen  in  the  inkstand.  But  with 
the  stylographic  pen,  in  the  hands  of  one  who  knows 
how  to  care  for  it  and  how  to  use  it,  unbroken  rhythms 
and  harmonious  cadences  are  the  natural  products  of 
the  unimpeded  flow  of  the  fluid  which  is  the  vehicle 
of  the  author's  thoughts  and  fancies.  So  much  for 
my  debt  of  gratitude  to  the  humble  stylographic  pen. 
It  does  not  furnish  the  proper  medium  for  the  corre- 
spondence of  intimates,  who  wish  to  see  as  much  of 
their  friends'  personality  as  their  handwriting  can 
hold,  —  still  less  for  the  impassioned  interchange  of 
sentiments  between  lovers;  but  in  writing  for  the 
press  its  use  is  open  to  no  objection.  Its  movement 
over  the  paper  is  like  the  flight  of  a  swallow,  while 
the  quill  pen  and  the  steel  pen  and  the  gold  pen  are 
all  taking  short,  laborious  journeys,  and  stopping  to 
drink  every  few  minutes. 

A  chief  pleasure  which  the  author  of  novels  and 
stories  experiences  is  that  of  becoming  acquainted 
with  the  characters  he  draws.  It  is  perfectly  true 
that  his  characters  must,  in  the  nature  of  things,  have 
more  or  less  of  himself  in  their  composition.  If  I 
should  seek  an  exemplification  of  this  in  the  person  of 
any  of  my  Teacups,  I  should  find  it  most  readily  in 
the  one  whom  I  have  called  Number  Seven,  —  the  one 
with  the  squinting  brain.  I  think  that  not  only  I,  the 
writer,  but  many  of  my  readers,  recognize  in  our  own 
mental  constitution  an  occasional  obliquity  of  percep- 
tion, not  always  detected  at  the  time,  but  plain  enough 
when  looked  back  upon.  What  extravagant  fancies 
you  and  I  have  seriously  entertained  at  one  time  or 
another!  What  superstitious  notions  have  got  into 


300  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

our  heads  and  taken  possession  of  its  empty  chambers, 
—  or,  in  the  language  of  science,  seized  on  the  groups 
of  nerve-cells  in  some  of  the  idle  cerebral  convolu- 
tions ! 

The  writer,  I  say,  becomes  acquainted  with  his 
characters  as  he  goes  on.  They  are  at  first  mere  em- 
bryos, outlines  of  distinct  personalities.  By  and  by, 
if  they  have  any  organic  cohesion,  they  begin  to  assert 
themselves.  They  can  say  and  do  such  and  such 
things ;  such  and  such  other  things  they  cannot  and 
must  not  say  or  do.  The  story-writer's  and  play- 
writer's  danger  is  that  they  will  get  their  characters 
mixed,  and  make  A  say  what  B  ought  to  have  said. 
The  stronger  his  imaginative  faculty,  the  less  liable 
will  the  writer  be  to  this  fault ;  but  not  even  Shakes- 
peare's power  of  throwing  himself  into  his  characters 
prevents  many  of  his  different  personages  from  talk- 
ing philosophy  in  the  same  strain  and  in  a  style  com- 
mon to  them  all. 

You  will  often  observe  that  authors  fall  in  love  with 
the  imaginary  persons  they  describe,  and  that  they 
bestow  affectionate  epithets  upon  them  which  it  may 
happen  the  reader  does  not  consider  in  any  way  called 
for.  This  is  a  pleasure  to  which  they  have  a  right. 
Every  author  of  a  story  is  surrounded  by  a  little 
family  of  ideal  children,  as  dear  to  him,  it  may  be,  as 
are  flesh-and-blood  children  to  their  parents.  You 
may  forget  all  about  the  circle  of  Teacups  to  which  I 
have  introduced  you,  —  on  the  supposition  that  you 
'  have  followed  me  with  some  degree  of  interest ;  but 
do  you  suppose  that  Number  Five  does  not  continue 
as  a  presence  with  me,  and  that  my  pretty  Delilah  has 
left  me  forever  because  she  is  going  to  be  married  ? 
No,  my  dear  friend,  our  circle  will  break  apart,  and 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  301 

its  different  members  will  soon  be  to  you  as  if  they 
had  never  been.  But  do  you  think  that  I  can  forget 
them  ?  Do  you  suppose  that  I  shall  cease  to  follow 
the  love  (or  the  loves ;  which  do  you  think  is  the  true 
word,  the  singular  or  the  plural?)  of  Number  Five 
and  the  young  Tutor  who  is  so  constantly  found  in  her 
company  ?  Do  you  suppose  that  I  do  not  continue  my 
relations  with  the  "  cracked  Teacup,  "  —  the  poor  old 
fellow  with  whom  I  have  so  much  in  common,  whose 
counterpart,  perhaps,  you  may  find  in  your  own  com- 
plex personality  ? 

I  take  from  the  top  shelf  of  the  hospital  department 
of  my  library — the  section  devoted  to  literary  cripples, 
imbeciles,  failures,  foolish  rhymesters,  and  silly  eccen- 
trics—  one  of  the  least  conspicuous  and  most  hope- 
lessly feeble  of  the  weak-minded  population  of  that 
intellectual  almshouse.  I  open  it  and  look  through  its 
pages.  It  is  a  story.  I  have  looked  into  it  once  be- 
fore,— on  its  first  reception  as  a  gift  from  the  author. 
I  try  to  recall  some  of  the  names  I  see  there :  they 
mean  nothing  to  me,  but  I  venture  to  say  the  author 
cherishes  them  all,  and  cries  over  them  as  he  did  when 
he  was  writing  their  history.  I  put  the  book  back 
among  its  dusty  companions,  and,  sitting  down  in  my 
reflective  rocking-chair,  think  how  others  must  forget, 
and  how  I  shall  remember,  the  company  that  gathered 
about  this  table. 

Shall  I  ever  meet  any  one  of  them  again,  in  these 
pages  or  in  any  other?  Will  the  cracked  Teacup  hold 
together,  or  will  he  go  to  pieces,  and  find  himself  in 
that  retreat  where  the  owner  of  the  terrible  clock 
which  drove  him  crazy  is  walking  under  the  shelter  of 
the  high  walls  ?  Has  the  young  Doctor's  crown  yet 
received  the  seal  which  is  Nature's  warrant  of  wisdom 


302  OVER   THE  TEACUPS. 

and  proof  of  professional  competency  ?  And  Number 
Five  and  her  young  friend  the  Tutor,  —  have  they 
kept  on  in  their  dangerous  intimacy  ?  Did  they  get 
through  the  tutto  tremante  passage,  reading  from  the 
same  old  large  edition  of  Dante  which  the  Tutor 
recommended  as  the  best,  and  in  reading  from  which 
their  heads  were  necessarily  brought  perilously  near 
to  each  other  ? 

It  would  be  very  pleasant  if  I  could,  consistently 
with  the  present  state  of  affairs,  bring  these  two  young 
people  together.  I  say  two  young  people,  for  the  one 
who  counts  most  years  seems  to  me  to  be  really  the 
younger  of  the  pair.  That  Number  Five  foresaw  from 
the  first  that  any  tenderer  feeling  than  that  of  friend- 
ship would  intrude  itself  between  them  I  do  not  be- 
lieve. As  for  the  Tutor,  he  soon  found  where  he  was 
drifting.  It  was  his  first  experience  in  matters  con- 
cerning the  heart,  and  absorbed  his  whole  nature  as 
a  thing  of  course.  Did  he  tell  her  he  loved  her? 
Perhaps  he  did,  fifty  times ;  perhaps  he  never  had  the 
courage  to  say  so  outright.  But  sometimes  they  looked 
each  other  straight  in  the  eyes,  and  strange  messages 
seemed  to  pass  from  one  consciousness  to  the  other. 
Will  the  Tutor  ask  Number  Five  to  be  his  wife  ;  and 
if  he  does,  will  she  yield  to  the  dictates  of  nature,  and 
lower  the  flag  of  that  fortress  so  long  thought  impreg- 
nable ?  Will  he  go  on  writing  such  poems  to  her  as 
"The  Rose  and  the  Fern"  or  "I  Like  You  and  I 
Love  You, "  and  be  content  with  the  pursuit  of  that 
which  he  never  can  attain  ?  That  is  all  very  well  on 
the  "  Grecian  Urn  "  of  Keats,  —  beautiful,  but  not 
love  such  as  mortals  demand.  Still,  that  may  be  all, 
for  aught  that  we  have  yet  seen. 


'OVER  THE   TEACUPS.  308 

"  Fair  youth,  beneath  the  trees,  thou  canst  not  leave 
Thy  song,  nor  ever  can  those  trees  be  bare  ; 
Bold  lover,  never,  never,  canst  thou  kiss, 
Though  winning  near  the  goal,  —  yet  do  not  grieve  ; 
She  cannot  fade,  though  thou  hast  not  thy  bliss, 
Forever  wilt  thou  love,  and  she  be  fair  ! 

"  More  happy  love  !  more  happy,  happy  love  ! 
Forever  warm,  and  still  to  be  enjoyed, 
Forever  panting  and  forever  young  ! '' 

And  so,  good-bye,  young  people,  whom  we  part  with 
here.  Shadows  you  have  been  and  are  to  my  readers  ; 
very  real  you  have  been  and  are  to  me,  —  as  real  as 
the  memories  of  many  friends  whom  I  shall  see  no 
more. 

As  I  am  not  in  the  habit  of  indulging  in  late  sup- 
pers, the  reader  need  not  think  that  I  shall  spread 
another  board  and  invite  him  to  listen  to  the  conver- 
sations which  take  place  around  it.  If,  from  time  to 
time,  he  finds  a  slight  refection  awaiting  him  on  the 
sideboard,  I  hope  he  may  welcome  it  as  pleasantly  as 
he  has  accepted  what  I  have  offered  him  from  the 
board  now  just  being  cleared. 


It  is  a  good  rule  for  the  actor  who  manages  the 
popular  street  drama  of  Punch  not  to  let  the  audience 
or  spectators  see  his  legs.  It  is  very  hard  for  the 
writer  of  papers  like  these,  which  are  now  coming  tc 
their  conclusion,  to  keep  his  personality  from  showing 
itself  too  conspicuously  through  the  thin  disguises  of 
his  various  characters.  As  the  show  is  now  over,  as 
the  curtain  has  fallen,  I  appear  before  it  in  my  proper 
person,  to  address  a  few  words  to  the  friends  who  have 
assisted,  as  the  French  say,  by  their  presence,  and  as 


304  OVER  THE  TEACUPS. 

we  use  the  word,  by  the  kind  way  in  which  they  have 
received  my  attempts  at  their  entertainment. 

This  series  of  papers  is  the  fourth  of  its  kind  which 
I  have  offered  to  my  readers.  I  may  be  allowed  to 
look  back  upon  the  succession  of  serial  articles  which 
was  commenced  more  than  thirty  years  ago,  in  1857. 
"  The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast-Table  "  was  the  first 
of  the  series.  It  was  begun  without  the  least  idea 
what  was  to  be  its  course  and  its  outcome.  Its  char- 
acters shaped  themselves  gradually  as  the  manuscript 
grew  under  my  hand.  I  jotted  down  on  the  sheet  of 
blotting  paper  before  me  the  thoughts  and  fancies 
which  came  into  my  head.  A  very  odd-looking  object 
was  this  page  of  memoranda.  Many  of  the  hints  were 
worked  up  into  formal  shape,  many  were  rejected. 
Sometimes  I  recorded  a  story,  a  jest,  or  a  pun  for  con- 
sideration, and  made  use  of  it  or  let  it  alone  as  my 
second  thought  decided.  I  remember  a  curious  coin- 
cidence, which,  if  I  have  ever  told  in  print,  —  I  am 
not  sure  whether  I  have  or  not,  —  I  will  tell  over  again. 
I  mention  it,  not  for  the  pun,  which  I  rejected  as  not 
very  edifying  and  perhaps  not  new,  though  I  did  not 
recollect  having  seen  it. 

Mulier,  Latin  for  woman ;  why  apply  that  name  to 
one  of  the  gentle  but  occasionally  obstinate  sex  ?  The 
answer  was  that  a  woman  is  (sometimes)  more  mulish 
than  a  mule.  Please  observe  that  I  did  not  like  the 
poor  pun  very  well,  and  thought  it  rather  rude  and 
inelegant.  So  I  left  it  on  the  blotter,  where  it  was 
standing  when  one  of  the  next  numbers  of  "  Punch  *' 
came  out  and  contained  that  very  same  pun,  which 
must  have  been  hit  upon  by  some  English  contributor 
at  just  about  the  same  time  I  fell  upon  it  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic.  This  fact  may  be  added  to  the 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  305 

chapter   of  coincidences  which   belongs   to  the  first 
number  of  this  series  of  papers. 

The  '  Autocrat "  had  the  attraction  of  novelty,  which 
of  course  was  wanting  in  the  succeeding  papers  of 
similar  character.  The  criticisms  upon  the  successive 
numbers  as  they  came  out  were  various,  but  generally 
encouraging.  Some  were  more  than  encouraging- 
very  high-colored  in  their  phrases  of  commendation. 
When  the  papers  were  brought  together  in  a  volume 
their  success  was  beyond  my  expectations.  Up  to  the 
present  time  the  "  Autocrat "  has  maintained  its 
position.  An  immortality  of  a  whole  generation  is 
more  than  most  writers  are  entitled  to  expect.  I  ven- 
ture to  think,  from  the  letters  I  receive  from  the  chil- 
dren and  grandchildren  of  my  first  set  of  readers,  that 
for  some  little  time  longer,  at  least,  it  will  continue  to 
be  read,  and  even  to  be  a  favorite  with  some  of  its 
readers.  Non  omnis  moriar  is  a  pleasant  thought  to 
one  who  has  loved  his  poor  little  planet,  and  will,  I 
trust,  retain  kindly  recollections  of  it  through  whatever 
wilderness  of  worlds  he  may  be  called  to  wander  in  his 
future  pilgrimages.  I  say  "poor  little  planet."  Ever 
since  I  had  a  ten  cent  look  at  the  transit  of  Venus,  a 
few  years  ago,  through  the  telescope  in  the  Mall,  the 
earth  has  been  wholly  different  to  me  from  what  it 
used  to  be.  I  knew  from  books  what  a  speck  it  is  in 
the  universe,  but  nothing  ever  brought  the  fact  home 
like  the  sight  of  the  sister  planet  sailing  across  the 
sun's  disk,  about  large  enough  for  a  buckshot,  not 
large  enough  for  a  full-sized  bullet.  Yes,  I  love  the 
little  globule  where  I  have  spent  more  than  fourscore 
years,  and  I  like  to  think  that  some  of  my  thoughts 
and  some  of  my  emotions  may  live  themselves  over 
again  when  I  am  sleeping.  I  cannot  thank  all  the 


306  OVER   THE   TEACUPS. 

kind  readers  of  the  "  Autocrat "  who  are  constantly 
sending  me  their  acknowledgments.  If  they  see  this 
printed  page,  let  them  be  assured  that  a  writer  is  al- 
ways rendered  happier  by  being  told  that  he  has  made 
a  fellow-being  wiser  or  better,  or  even  contributed  to 
his  harmless  entertainment.  This  a  correspondent 
may  take  for  granted,  even  if  his  letter  of  grateful 
recognition  receives  no  reply.  It  becomes  more  and 
more  difficult  for  me  to  keep  up  with  my  correspon- 
dents, and  I  must  soon  give  it  up  as  impossible. 

"  The  Professor  at  the  Breakfast  Table  "  followed 
immediately  on  the  heels  of  the  "  Autocrat."  The 
Professor  was  the  alter  ego  of  the  first  personage.  In 
the  earlier  series  he  had  played  a  secondary  part,  and 
in  this  second  series  no  great  effort  was  made  to  create 
a  character  wholly  unlike  the  first.  The  Professor 
was  more  outspoken,  however,  on  religious  subjects, 
and  brought  down  a  good  deal  of  hard  language  on 
himself  and  the  author  to  whom  he  owed  his  existence. 
I  suppose  he  may  have  used  some  irritating  expres- 
sions, unconsciously,  but  not  unconscientiously,  I  am 
sure.  There  is  nothing  harder  to  forgive  than  the 
sting  of  an  epigram.  Some  of  the  old  doctors,  I  fear, 
never  pardoned  me  for  saying  that  if  a  ship,  loaded 
with  an  assorted  cargo  of  the  drugs  which  used  to  be 
considered  the  natural  food  of  sick  people,  went  to  the 
bottom  of  the  sea,  it  would  be  "  all  the  better  for  man- 
kind and  all  the  worse  for  the  fishes."  If  I  had  not 
put  that  snapper  on  the  end  of  my  whip-lash,  I  might 
have  got  off  without  the  ill  temper  which  my  antithe- 
sis provoked.  Thirty  years  set  that  all  right,  and  the 
same  thirty  years  have  so  changed  the  theological  at- 
mosphere  that  such  abusive  words  as  "  heretic  "  and 
"  infidel,"  applied  to  persons  who  differ  from  the  old 


OVER   THE  TEACUPS.  307 

standards  of  faith,  are  chiefly  interesting  as  a  test  of 
breeding,  being  seldom  used  by  any  people  above  the 
social  half-caste  line.  I  am  speaking  of  Protestants  ; 
how  it  may  be  among  Roman  Catholics  I  do  not  know, 
but  I  suspect  that  with  them  also  it  is  a  good  deal  a 
matter  of  breeding.  There  were  not  wanting  some 
who  liked  the  Professor  better  than  the  Autocrat.  I 
confess  that  I  prefer  my  champagne  in  its  first  burst 
of  gaseous  enthusiasm  ;  but  if  my  guest  likes  it  better 
after  it  has  stood  awhile,  I  am  pleased  to  accommodate 
him.  The  first  of  my  series  came  from  my  mind 
almost  with  an  explosion,  like  the  champagne  cork ; 
it  startled  me  a  little  to  see  what  I  had  written,  and 
to  hear  what  people  said  about  it.  After  that  first 
explosion  the  flow  was  more  sober,  and  I  looked  upon 
the  product  of  my  wine-press  more  coolly.  Continua- 
tions almost  always  sag  a  little.  I  will  not  say  that 
of  my  own  second  effort,  but  if  others  said  it,  I  should 
not  be  disposed  to  wonder  at  or  to  dispute  them. 

"  The  Poet  at  the  Breakfast  Table "  came  some 
years  later.  This  series  of  papers  was  not  so  much  a 
continuation  as  a  resurrection.  It  was  a  doubly  haz- 
ardous attempt,  made  without  any  extravagant  expec- 
tations, and  was  received  as  well  as  I  had  any  right 
to  anticipate.  It  differed  from  the  other  two  series  in 
containing  a  poem  of  considerable  length,  published  in 
successive  portions.  This  poem  holds  a  good  deal  of 
self-communing,  and  gave  me  the  opportunity  of  ex- 
pressing some  thoughts  and  feelings  not  to  be  found 
elsewhere  in  my  writings.  I  had  occasion  to  read  the 
whole  volume,  not  long  since,  in  preparation  for  a  new 
edition,  and  was  rather  more  pleased  with  it  than  I  had 
expected  to  be.  An  old  author  is  constantly  rediscov- 
ing  himself  in  the  more  or  less  fossilized  productions 


808  OVER  THE   TEACUPS. 

of  his  earlier  years.  It  is  a  long  time  since  I  have 
read  the  "  Autocrat,"  but  I  take  it  up  now  and  then 
and  read  in  it  for  a  few  minutes,  not  always  without 
some  degree  of  edification. 

These  three  series  of  papers,  "  Autocrat,"  "  Pro- 
fessor," "  Poet,"  are  all  studies  of  life  from  somewhat- 
different  points  of  view.  They  are  largely  made  up 
of  sober  reflections,  and  appeared  to  me  to  require 
some  lively  human  interest  to  save  them  from  weari- 
some didactic  dulness.  What  could  be  more  natural 
than  that  love  should  find  its  way  among  the  young 
people  who  helped  to  make  up  the  circle  gathered 
around  the  table  ?  Nothing  is  older  than  the  story  of 
young  love.  Nothing  is  newer  than  that  same  old 
story.  A  bit  of  gilding  here  and  there  has  a  wonder- 
ful effect  in  enlivening  a  landscape  or  an  apartment. 
Napoleon  consoled  the  Parisians  in  their  year  of  defeat 
by  gilding  the  dome  of  the  Invalides.  Boston  has 
glorified  her  State  House  and  herself  at  the  expense 
of  a  few  sheets  of  gold  leaf  laid  on  the  dome,  which 
shines  like  a  sun  in  the  eyes  of  her  citizens,  and  like  a 
star  in  those  of  the  approaching  traveller.  I  think 
the  gilding  of  a  love-story  helped  all  three  of  these 
earlier  papers.  The  same  need  I  felt  in  the  series  of 
papers  just  closed.  The  slight  incident  of  Delilah's 
appearance  and  disappearance  served  my  purpose  to 
some  extent.  But  what  should  I  do  with  Number 
Five?  The  reader  must  follow  out  her  career  for 
himself.  For  myself,  I  think  that  she  and  the  Tutor 
have  both  utterly  forgotten  the  difference  of  their 
years  in  the  fascination  of  intimate  intercourse.  I  do 
not  believe  that  a  nature  so  large,  so  rich  in  affection, 
as  Number  Five's  is  going  to  fall  defeated  of  its  best 
inheritance  of  life,  like  a  vine  which  finds  no  support 


OVER   THE   TEACUPS.  309 

for  its  tendrils  to  twine  around,  and  so  creeps  along 
the  ground  from  which  nature  meant  that  love  should 
lift  it.  I  feel  as  if  I  ought  to  follow  these  two  person- 
ages of  my  sermonizing  story  until  they  come  together 
or  separate,  to  fade,  to  wither,  —  perhaps  to  die,  at 
last,  of  something  like  what  the  doctors  call  heart-fail- 
ure, but  which  might  more  truly  be  called  heart-star- 
vation. When  I  say  die,  I  do  not  mean  necessarily 
the  death  that  goes  into  the  obituary  column.  It  may 
come  to  that,  in  one  or  both  ;  but  I  think  that,  if  they 
are  never  united,  Number  Five  will  outlive  the  Tutor, 
who  will  fall  into  melancholy  ways,  and  pine  and 
waste,  while  she  lives  along,  feeling  all  the  time  that 
she  has  cheated  herself  of  happiness.  I  hope  that  is 
not  going  to  be  their  fortune,  or  misfortune.  Vieille 
fille  fait  jeune  mariee.  What  a  youthful  bride  Num- 
ber Five  would  be,  if  she  could  only,  make  up  her 
mind  to  matrimony  !  In  the  mean  time  she  must  be 
left  with  her  lambs  all  around  her.  May  heaven 
temper  the  winds  to  them,  for  they  have  been  shorn 
very  close,  every  one  of  them,  of  their  golden  fleece 
of  aspirations  and  anticipations. 

I  must  avail  myself  of  this  opportunity  to  say  a  few 
words  to  my  distant  friends  who  take  interest  enough 
in  my  writings,  early  or  recent,  to  wish  to  enter  into 
communication  with  me  by  letter,  or  to  keep  up  a 
communication  already  begun.  I  have  given  notice  in 
print  that  the  letters,  books,  and  manuscripts  which  I 
receive  by  mail  are  so  numerous  that  if  I  undertook 
to  read  and  answer  them  all  I  should  have  little  time 
for  anything  else.  I  have  for  some  years  depended 
on  the  assistance  of  a  secretary,  but  our  joint  efforts 
have  proved  unable,  of  late,  to  keep  down  the  accumu- 
lations which  come  io  with  every  mail.  So  many  of 


310  OVER   THE  TEACUPS. 

the  letters  I  receive  are  of  a  pleasant  character  that  it 
is  hard  to  let  them  go  unacknowledged.  The  extreme 
friendliness  which  pervades  many  of  them  gives  them 
a  value  which  I  rate  very  highly.  When  large  num- 
bers of  strangers  insist  on  claiming  one  as  a  friend,  on 
the  strength  of  what  he  has  written,  it  tends  to  make 
him  think  of  himself  somewhat  indulgently.  It  is  the 
most  natural  thing  in  the  world  to  want  to  give  ex- 
pression to  the  feeling  the  loving  messages  from  far- 
off  unknown  friends  must  excite.  Many  a  day  has 
,  had  its  best  working  hours  broken  into,  spoiled  for  all 
literary  work,  by  the  labor  of  answering  correspon- 
dents whose  good  opinion  it  is  gratifying  to  have 
called  forth,  but  who  were  unconsciously  laying  a  new 
burden  on  shoulders  already  aching.  I  know  too  well 
that  what  I  say  will  not  reach  the  eyes  of  many  who 
might  possibly  take  a  hint  from  it.  Still  I  must 
keep  repeating  it  before  breaking  off  suddenly  and 
leaving  whole  piles  of  letters  unanswered.  I  have 
been  very  heavily  handicapped  for  many  years.  It  is 
partly  my  own  fault.  From  what  my  correspondents 
tell  me,  I  must  infer  that  I  have  established  a  danger- 
ous reputation  for  willingness  to  answer  all  sorts  of 
letters.  They  come  with  such  insinuating  humility, 
—  they  cannot  bear  to  intrude  upon  my  tune,  they 
know  that  I  have  a  great  many  calls  upon  it,  —  and 
incontinently  proceed  to  lay  their  additional  weight  on 
the  load  which  is  breaking  my  back. 

The  hypocrisy  of  kind-hearted  people  is  one  of  the 
most  painful  exhibitions  of  human  weakness.  It  has 
occurred  to  me  that  it  might  be  profitable  to  repro- 
duce some  of  my  unwritten  answers  to  correspondents. 
If  those  which  were  actually  written  and  sent  were 
to  be  printed  in  parallel  columns  with  those  mentally 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  311 

formed  but  not  written  out  responses  and  comments, 
the  reader  would  get  some  idea  of  the  internal  con- 
flicts an  honest  and  not  unamiable  person  has  to  go 
througn,  when  he  finds  himself  driven  to  the  wall  by 
a  correspondence  which  is  draining  his  vocabulary  to 
find  expressions  that  sound  as  agreeably,  and  signify 
as  little,  as  the  phrases  used  by  a  diplomatist  in  clos- 
ing an  official  communication. 

No.  1.  Want  my  autograph,  do  you  ?  And  don't 
know  how  to  spell  my  name  !  An  a  for  an  e  in  my 
middle  name.  Leave  out  the  I  in  my  last  name.  Do 
you  know  how  people  hate  to  have  their  names  mis- 
spelled ?  What  do  you  suppose  are  the  sentiments 
entertained  by  the  Thompsons  with  a  p  towards  those 
who  address  them  in  writing  as  Thomson  ? 

No.  2.  Think  the  lines  you  mention  are  by  far  the 
best  I  ever  wrote,  hey?  Well,  I  didn't  write  those 
lines.  What  is  more,  I  think  they  are  as  detestable  a 
string  of  rhymes  as  I  could  wish  my  worst  enemy  had 
written.  A  very  pleasant  frame  of  mind  I  am  in  for 
writing  a  letter,  after  reading  yours  ! 

No.  3.  I  am  glad  to  hear  that  my  namesake,  whom 
I  never  saw  and  never  expect  to  see,  has  cut  another 
tooth ;  but  why  write  four  pages  on  the  strength  of 
that  domestic  occurrence  ? 

No.  4.  You  wish  to  correct  an  error  in  my  Broom- 
stick poem,  do  you?  You  give  me  to  understand 
that  Wilmington  is  not  in  Essex  County,  but  in  Mid- 
dlesex. Very  well;  but  are  they  separated  by  run- 
ning water  ?  Because  if  they  are  not,  what  could 
hinder  a  witch  from  crossing  the  line  that  separates 
Wilmington  from  Andover,  I  should  like  to  know?  I 
never  meant  to  imply  that  the  witches  made  no  excur- 
sions beyond  the  district  which  was  more  especially 
their  seat  of  operations. 


312  OVER   THE  TEACUPS. 

As  I  come  towards  the  end  of  this  task  which  I  had 
set  myself,  I  wish,  of  course,  that  I  could  have  per- 
formed it  more  to  my  own  satisfaction  and  that  of  my 
readers.  This  is  a  feeling  which  almost  every  one 
must  have  at  the  conclusion  of  any  work  he  has  un- 
dertaken. A  common  and  very  simple  reason  for  this 
disappointment  is  that  most  of  us  overrate  our  capac- 
ity. We  expect  more  of  ourselves  than  we  have  any 
right  to,  in  virtue  of  our  endowments.  The  figurative 
descriptions  of  the  last  Grand  Assize  must  no  more 
be  taken  literally  than  the  golden  crowns,  which  we 
do  not  expect  or  want  to  wear  on  our  heads,  or  the 
golden  harps,  which  we  do  not  want  or  expect  to  hold 
in  our  hands.  Is  it  not  too  true  that  many  religious 
sectaries  think  of  the  last  tribunal  complacently,  as 
the  scene  in  which  they  are  to  have  the  satisfaction  of 
saying  to  the  believers  of  a  creed  different  from  their 
own,  "  I  told  you  so  "  ?  Are  not  others  oppressed 
with  the  thought  of  the  great  returns  which  will  be 
expected  of  them  as  the  product  of  their  great  gifts, 
the  very  limited  amount  of  which  they  do  not  suspect, 
and  will  be  very  glad  to  learn,  even  at  the  expense  of 
their  self-love,  when  they  are  called  to  their  account  ? 
If  the  ways  of  the  Supreme  Being  are  ever  really  to 
be  "justified  to  men,"  to  use  Milton's  expression, 
every  human  being  may  expect  an  exhaustive  explana- 
tion of  himself.  No  man  is  capable  of  being  his  own 
counsel,  and  I  cannot  help  hoping  that  the  ablest  of 
tlu  archangels  will  be  retained  for  the  defence  of  the 
worst  of  sinners.  He  himself  is  unconscious  of  the 
agencies  which  made  him  what  he  is.  Self-determin- 
ing he  may  be,  if  you  will,  but  who  determines  the 
self  which  is  the  proximate  source  of  the  determina- 
tion? Why  was  the  A  self  like  his  good  uncle  in 


OVER  THE  TEACUPS.  318 

bodily  aspect  and  mental  and  moral  qualities,  and  the 
B  self  like  the  bad  uncle  in  look  and  character? 
Has  not  a  man  a  right  to  ask  this  question  in  the  here 
or  in  the  hereafter,  —  in  this  world  or  in  any  world 
in  which  he  may  find  himself  ?  If  the  All  wise  wishes 
to  satisfy  his  reasonable  and  reasoning  creatures,  it 
will  not  be  by  a  display  of  elemental  convulsions,  but 
by  the  still  small  voice,  which  treats  with  him  as  a  de- 
pendent entitled  to  know  the  meaning  of  his  exist- 
ence, and  if  there  was  anything  wrong  in  his  adjust- 
ment to  the  moral  and  spiritual  conditions  of  the 
world  around  him  to  have  full  allowance  made  for  it. 
No  melodramatic  display  of  warring  elements,  such  as 
the  white-robed  Second  Adventist  imagines,  can  meet 
the  need  of  the  human  heart.  The  thunders  and 
lightnings  of  Sinai  terrified  and  impressed  the  more 
timid  souls  of  the  idolatrous  and  rebellious  caravan 
which  the  great  leader  was  conducting,  but  a  far  no- 
bler manifestation  of  divinity  was  that  when  "  the 
Lord  spake  unto  Moses  face  to  face,  as  a  man  speak- 
eth  unto  his  friend." 

I  find  the  burden  and  restrictions  of  rhyme  more 
and  more  troublesome  as  I  grow  older.  There  are 
times  when  it  seems  natural  enough  to  employ  that 
form  of  expression,  but  it  is  only  occasionally;  and 
the  use  of  it  as  the  vehicle  of  the  commonplace  is  so 
prevalent  that  one  is  not  much  tempted  to  select  it  as 
the  medium  for  his  thoughts  and  emotions.  The  art 
of  rhyming  has  almost  become  a  part  of  a  high-school 
education,  and  its  practice  is  far  from  being  an  evi- 
dence of  intellectual  distinction.  Mediocrity  is  as 
much  forbidden  to  the  poet  in  our  days  as  it  was  in 
those  of  Horace,  and  the  immense  majority  of  the 
verses  written  are  stamped  with  hopeless  mediocrity. 


314  OVER   THE  TEACUPS. 

When  one  of  the  ancient  poets  found  he  was  trying 
to  grind  out  verses  which  came  unwillingly,  he  said 
he  was  writing 

INVITA  MINERVA. 

Vex  not  the  Muse  with  idle  prayers,  — 

She  will  not  hear  thy  call ; 
She  steals  upon  thee  unawares, 

Or  seeks  thee  not  at  all. 

Soft  as  the  moonbeams  when  they  sought 

Endym  ion's  fragrant  bower, 
She  parts  the  whispering  leaves  of  thought 

To  show  her  full-blown  flower. 

For  thee  her  wooing  hour  has  passed, 

The  singing  birds  have  flown, 
And  winter  comes  with  icy  blast 

To  chill  thy  buds  unblown. 

Yet,  though  the  woods  no  longer  thrill 

As  once  their  arches  rung, 
Sweet  echoes  hover  round  thee  still 

Of  songs  thy  summer  sung. 

Live  in  thy  past  ;  await  no  more 

The  rush  of  heaven-sent  wings  ; 
Earth  still  has  music  left  in  store 

While  Memory  sighs  and  sings. 

I  hope  my  special  Minerva  may  not  always  be  un- 
willing, but  she  must  not  be  called  upon  as  she  has 
been  in  times  past.  Now  that  the  teacups  have  left 
the  table,  an  occasional  evening  call  is  all  that  my 
readers  must  look  for.  Thanking  them  for  their  kind 
oompanionship,  and  hoping  that  I  may  yet  meet  them 
in  the  now  and  thens  of  the  future,  I  bid  them  good- 
bye for  the  immediate  present. 


INDEX. 


ABILITY,  superior,  and  long  life,  28. 

Achilles,  little  better  than  a  Choctaw 
brave,  74. 

Affections,  sprinkled  or  poured  out,  218. 

Affinities,  not  to  be  settled  by  the  al- 
manac, 263. 

After  the  Curfew,  69. 

Alcoholic  stimulants,  184.       " 

Alexander  the  Great,  74. 

Allen,  Ethan,  186. 

American  girl,  The,  52,  83,  104, 122, 176, 
200,  201,  266. 

American  literature,  certain  tendencies 
of,  110. 

Angel,  an,  with  a  cloud  for  a  handker- 
chief, 99. 

Angel,  the  recording,  destroys  old  rec- 
ord-books, 48. 

Annexes,  the  two,  52,  83,  99,  104,  113, 
119,  120,  122,  143,  174,  200,  201,  224, 
225,  241,  242,  244,  262-265,  271,  279. 

Apology,  an,  hateful  to  the  world  of 
readers,  293. 

Appleton,  Mr.,  on  green  turtle  soup. 
275. 

Arch,  beauty  and  endurance  of  the,  211, 
212. 

Archangel,  an,  can  smile,  60. 

Aristocracy,  hard-handed,  218. 

Arnold,  Sir  Edwin,  298. 

"  Are  Poetica,"  the,  modernized,  88, 90. 

Ases  and  the  Jf»,  the,  121,  122. 

Assize,  the  last  Grand,  313. 

At  the  Pantomime,  198. 

At  the  Turn  of  the  Road,  288. 

Atmospheric  rings,  a  woman's,  286. 

Author,  the,  and  his  characters,  299,  300. 

Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast-Table,  The, 
304. 

Avis,  the  Delilah  of  The  Teacups,  201, 
268,  269, 271,  287. 

Babel,  the  new  Tower  of,  104. 

Backbones,  cartilaginous,  121. 

Bachelder,  Rev.  Stephen,  37. 

Bacon's  Essays,  at  fifty  guineas  a  sheet,  8. 

Balzac's  Peau  de  Chagrin,  72. 

Barzillai,  poor  old,  2C. 

Beliefs,  men's  sterner,  apt  to  soften  in 
their  later  years,  39. 

Bethesda,  the  pool  of,  stirred  by  an  au- 
thor, 10. 

Bigelow,  George  Tyler,  29. 


Birthday,  The  Dictator's,  290  el  ttq. 
Black  drop,  nature's,  30,  39. 
Book-tasting,  151, 157. 
Bore,  a  peculiarity  of  the,  83. 
Boston  Natural  History  Society,  16. 
Brain,  like  a  tinder-box,  a,  14 ;  action 

through  space,  15;  squinting,  96,  99, 

111,  114,  115,  162,  166,  204,  281,  282; 

wanting  in  bilateral  symmetry,  282, 

283. 

Brain-tappers,  12,  179  et  seq. 
Briggs,  Richard,  163. 
Broomstick  Train,  The,  226,  312. 
Brownell,  Henry  Howard,  153. 
Browning,  Robert,  41 ;  "  A  Grammarian's 

Funeral,"  133, 175. 
Bruno,  Giordano,  163. 
Bryant,  William  Cullen,  41,  247,  248. 
Burns,  Robert,  253; 
Byron,  Lord,  49. 

Cabalistic  sentence,  the,  164. 

Cacoethes  Scribendi,  93. 

Caleb,  the    son   of   Jephunneh,    brags 
about  himself ,  25. 

Calhoun,  J.  C.,  45. 

Cannibals,  literary,  23. 

Carlyle,   his  picture  of  an  editor,   10; 
smoking  with  his  mother,  33. 

Celebrations,  American  and  English,  272 
et  seq. 

Cerebral  induction,  a  typical  example  of, 
15. 

Cerebricity,  stored,  15. 

Chelsea,  England,  278. 

Chevreul,  Michel  Eugene,  27. 

Christian  heathenism,  250. 

Christian  sects  should  be  polite  to  each 
other,  196. 

Circe,  a,  who  turns  her  victims  into 
lambs,  217,  238. 

Citizen,  a  good  enough  term  for  any- 
body, 222. 

Clarke,  James  Freeman,  28,  29,  34,  68. 
196. 

Class  of  1829  at  Harvard  College,  the,  28 

Cleveland,  "Father,"  26. 

Climacteric,  the  grand,  30. 

Clock,  The  Terrible,  169. 

Coffee,  the  morning  cup  of,  more  exhil- 
arating than  the  evening  cup  of  tea,  6. 

Coincidence,  curious  case*  of,  13,  18,  19 
304. 


316 


INDEX. 


Commencements,  and  other  celebrations, 

272  et  seq. 

Conditions,  men  largely  shaped  by,  40. 
Consciousness,  one   latch-key    of,   fits 

many  doors,  10. 

Contradiction,  perpetual,  a  pelting  hail- 
storm, 281. 
Conversazione  and  fete,  in  the  parish  of 

St.  James,  Marylebone,  274  et  seq. 
"Corner  Bookstore,"  the  famous,  150. 
Correspondence,  The  Dictator's,  136  el 

seq.,  3M,  309  el  seq. 
Counsellor,  The,  51,  68,  79,  91-93,  99, 

120,  122-124,  190,  192,  217,  240,  241, 

243,  261. 

Coupon  bonds,  72,  73. 
Cowper,  William,  253. 
"  Crank,"  what  is  a  ?  161. 
Creed,  growing  out  of  a  narrow,  247  ; 
.    the  Athanasiau,  258. 
»  Critics,  swarm  like  bacteria,  23. 
Curtis,  Benjamin  Bobbins,  28. 
Cymou  and  Iphigenia,  285. 

David,  King,  badly  off  at  the  age  of 
seventy,  26. 

Davis,  George  T.,  29. 

Decade,  every,  a  defence  of  the  next,  36. 

Delilah,  the  handmaiden,  61,  143,  154, 
159, 160, 162, 174, 199-202, 224-226, 241, 
262,  265,  268,  270,  283,  287,  300,  308. 

DC  Morgan,  Augustus,  161  ft  seq.,  203. 

Dentist's  chair,  new  horrors  associated 
with,  17. 

Dexter,  Lord  Timothy,  231  et  seq. 

Dictator,  The,  24,  45,  51,  60,  72,  92, 117, 
134,  146,  147, 176,  177,  181,  205.  244  et 
passim. 

Disease,  advantage  of  having  a  mortal, 
183  ;  as  to  curing,  189. 

Doctor,  the  young,  51,  67,  119,  121,  123, 
124,  128,  131,  168,  217,  224-226,  240, 
241,  261,  264,  265,  267,  269-271,  279, 
283,  287,  288,  301. 

Dramatis  personse,  the  usefulness  of,  53. 

Drawing,  ingenious  system  for  teaching, 
82. 

Dream,  Number  Five's,  56. 

Dreaming  idealizes  and  renders  fasci- 
nating, 286. 

Dying,  the  business  of,  250. 

Dyspepsia,  mental,  148. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  40,  249,  252. 
Egotist,  the  great  original  American,  232. 
Electricity,  force  stripped  stark  naked, 

215. 

Elms,  a  useful  lesson  of,  38. 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  38,  195, 233. 
English  girl,  the  young,  14,  52,  83,  104, 

130, 175,  176,  266,  273. 
Epigram,  nothing  harder  than  to  forgive 

the  sting  of  an,  306. 
Eternal  punishment,  244  et  seq. 
"  Evenings  at  Home,"  206,  207. 
Everett,  Edward,  quotes  the  jEneiil,  9. 
Evil  words,  man's  vocabulary  terribly 

retentive  of,  109. 


Evolution,  the  doctrine  of,  255. 

"  Exhibition,"  an,  at   a  young  ladies' 

school,  203  el  seq. 
"  Eyes  and  No  Eyes,"  206,  207. 

Fall  of  man,  doctrine  of  the,  252. 
Family  doctor,  not  extinct,  124. 
Famous,  how  to  be,  86. 
Flaubert,  M.,  106  et  seq. 
Foundlings,  planetary,  40,  54,  55. 
Fourscore,  the  Mont  Blanc  of,  27. 
Freeman,  Rev.  James,  196. 

'•  Gaspings  for  Immortality,"  88. 

Gilpin,  Daddy,  273. 

Golden  rule,  the,  in  dealing  with  unbe- 
lievers, 197. 

Good-bye,  The  Dictator's,  315. 

Graduates,  from  the  academy  of  love, 
243. 

Growing  old,  women  do  it  in  a  becom- 
ing way,  293. 

Habit,  everything  depends  on,  27. 

Hadrian,  Emperor,  45. 

Hale,  Edward  Everett,  ingenious,  inven- 
tive, and  inexhaustible,  9. 

Halleck,  Fitz  Greene,  41. 

Hastings,  Henry,  2Y. 

Haweis,  Rev.  H.  R.,  273  et  seq. 

Health,  how  to  preserve,  186 ;  the  curve 
of,  187,  188. 

Heart-starvation,  309. 

Holyoke,  Dr.,  of  Salem,  26,  184. 

Homer,  74,  75. 

Homo  caudatus,  155. 

Horace,  157, 158. 

Hospital  department  of  a  library,  301. 

Humane  Society,  a,  in  heaven,  257. 

Hypocrisy  of  kind-hearted  people,  the, 
310. 

Hysteric  girl,  a,  who  thought  herself  a 
born  poetess,  240. 

Idiot,  the  prize,  112. 

Idiotic  area  in  the  human  mind,  an,  12, 

166. 

//*  and  the  Ases,  the,  121, 122. 
I  Like  you  and  I  Love  you,  144. 
I-My-Self  &  Co.,  166. 
Ik  Marvel,  133. 
Independence,  American    literary,  233 

el  seq. 

Invita  Minerva,  315. 
Iphigenia  and  Cymon,285. 
Irving,  Washington,  278. 
Isopodic  societies,  64. 

James,  William,  166. 
Jefferson,  Thomas,  233. 
Jenkins,  Henry,  26. 
Jews,  prejudice  against,  193  et  seq. 
Johnson,  Dr.   Samuel,   carried  to   Her 
Majesty  Queen  Anne,  205. 

Keats,  his  "  Grecian  Urn,"  302. 

Keller,  Helen,  140  et  seq. 

Kindness,  pitying,  a  bitter  sweet,  191. 


INDEX. 


317 


"  Kirby's  Wonderful  Museum,"  17. 
Knights  of  Lafcor,  two  unfortunate,  219 
ft  seq. 

Lachapelle,  Madame,  131. 

La  Maisou  d'Or,  172. 

Latch-key  of  consciousness,  the,  10. 

Life,  natural  to  cling  to,  35;  yet  some 
persons  get  more  of  it  than  they  want, 
35 ;  a  game  of  chess,  not  solitaire  or 
checkers,  66  ;  petit  verre,  292. 

Lines  to  a  Pretty  Little  Maid  of  Mam- 
ma's, 154. 

Literary  independence,  American,  233, 
et  seq. 

Long  life,  cases  of:  Moses,  Joshua,  Henry 
Jenkins,  Thomas  Parr,  Dr.  Holyoke, 
Father  Cleveland,  Colonel  Perkins, 
Lord  Lyndhurst,  Josiah  Quincy,  Sid- 
ney Bartlett,  Rauke,  Chevreul,  Henry 
Hastings,  Benjamin  Pierce,  James 
Freeman  Clarke,  B.  R.  Curtis,  George 
T.  Bigelow,  George  T.  Davis,  25-29; 
Gladstone,  33  ;  Metastasio,  Bryant, 
Longfellow,  Halleck,  Whittier,  Tenny- 
son, Browning,  41 ;  Madame  Saqui,  42 ; 
Theophrastus,  190 ;  Mrs.  Thrale,  284 ; 
Bancroft,  292. 

Longevity,  prescriptions  for,  182  et  seq. 

Longfellow,  Henry  Wads  worth,  40,  41. 

Louis  Philippe,  223. 

Louis  XIV.,  168, 169. 

Love,  the  flower  of  young,  147 ;  or 
loves?  301. 

Lover's  vocabulary,  the,  91. 

Lunites,  the,  59,  60. 

Lyndhurst,  Lord,  27. 

Mall,  the  telescope  in  the,  305. 
Mask,  a,  of  no  advantage  to  a  writer,  20. 
Mason,  Dr.  John  M.,  196. 
Me-Number-One  and  Me-Number-Two, 

154, 155. 
Metallic  taste  of  articles  written  at  so 

many  guineas  a  sheet,  8. 
Metastasio,  41. 

Miracles  we  have  witnessed,  31,  32. 
Mis-spelling  of  their  names,  very  hate- 

fnl  to  people,  311. 
Mistress,  The,  45, 50,  54, 56,  74,  84,  120, 

201,  216,  224,  256,  264-209,  290. 
Mitchell,  Donald  Grant,  133. 
Mitchell,  Weir,  an  expression  borrowed 

from,  28 ;    his  treatment  of  nervous 

exhaustion,  184. 

Mont  Blanc  of  fourscore,  the,  27. 
Monteflore,  Sir  Moses,  199. 
Monuments  which  are  a  perpetual  eye- 
sore, 104,  105. 
Morhof,  the  essays  of,  160. 
Morley,  John,  on  eternal  punishment, 

253. 
Mooes,  in  remarkably  good  condition  for 

a  man  of  his  age,  25. 
Mother's  influence,  a,  247. 
M>tlifr,  a  pun  on,  304. 
Music,  the  unfathomable  mysteries  of, 

95 ;  can  be  translated  only  by  music, 


98 ;  the  Volapuk  of  spiritual  being 

99. 

Music-baths,  good  for  the  soul,  97. 
Musician,  The,  52,  243,  265,  267. 

Nahuni,  a  prophecy  of,  216. 

National  Hymn,  our,  29. 

Nature,  her  black  drop,  30,  39 ;  as  a 
nurse,  55 ;  supplied  the  models  for 
pyramid  and  obelisk,  1C1 ;  deals  wise- 
ly with  the  old,  294 ;  pitiless,  yet  piti- 
ful, 295. 

Niagara,  a  giant's  tongue,  214. 

Nile,  when  The  Dictator  expects  to  visit 
the,  100. 

Nobility,  certain  titles  of,  219,  222. 

Number  Five,  48,  50,  51,  53,  55,  56,  61, 
66-68,  76,  78,  81,  82,  86,  87,  90,  96,  97, 
99,100,111,113,  119,121,131,  143,144, 
146,  155,  167,  168,  174-179,  199,  202, 
216,  217,  238-247,  257,  258,  261-263, 
265,  266,  268,  279,  283-287,  300-302, 
308,309. 

Number  Seven,  14,  48,  53,  68,  75,  79,  81, 
82,  89,  94-96,  99,  111-114,  117,  120, 
146,  155,  161,  163,  203  et  seq.,  217, 
226,  237,  258,  265,  267,  279,  281,  299, 
301. 

Oatmeal  or  pie  ?  185,  136. 

Obituary  notice  of  himself,  The  Dic- 
tator reads  an,  135. 

"  Occasional  "  poems,  270. 

Octogenarian,  how  to  become  an,  181 
el  seq. 

Old  age,  cheerful,  33 ;  the  great  priv- 
ilege of,  34 ;  habits  are  its  crutches, 
37  ;  like  an  opium-dream,  39  ;  reli- 
gious attitude  of,  45 ;  Wordsworth's 
picture  of,  in  "  Matthew,"  48;  tender 
melancholy  of,  192  ;  a  pair  of  specta- 
cles his  saddle,  295. 

"  Old  Blue,"  31. 

Orthobrachiaus,  the,  64. 

Over-Feeding,  Intellectual,  148. 

Parasite,  a  murderous  South  American, 

92. 

Parr,  Thomas,  26. 
Parricide,  moral,  248. 
Patch,  Mr.  Samuel,  15f>. 
Peau  de  Chagrin  of  State  Street,  the, 

73. 
Pens  (quill,  steel,  and  gold)  drink  too 

often,  299. 

Perkins,  Colonel,  of  Connecticut,  'JO. 
Perversity,    occasional    paroxysms    of, 

282. 

Petit  rerre,  the,  291,  292. 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society,  di-.iners  of  the, 

9  ;  Emerson's  Oration  before,  333. 
Phillips,  Grenville  Tudor  18. 
Pierce,  Professor  Benjamin,  28. 
Pindar,  his  odes  were  occasional  poem*, 

270. 

PlaRinriHin,  contrimis,  153. 
Poet,  a,  would  nut  make  rhymes  while 

his  house  wu  burning,  279 ;  nor  de- 


318 


INDEX. 


daim  a  versified  proposal  to  his 
Amanda,  280. 

Poet  at  the  Breakfast  Table,  The,  30?  et 
seq. 

Poetry,  a  matter  of  heart-beats,  41 ;  as 
contagious  as  measles,  50  ;  attenuated 
volumes  of,  76 ;  everybody  can  learn 
to  make,  77  ;  "  taught  iu  twelve  les- 
sons," 78 ;  a  Primer  of,  for  the  pupils 
of  the  Idiot  Asylum,  80,  81 ;  manufac- 
ture of,  84  ;  the  ashes  of  emotion,  279. 

Poets  not  particularly  short-lived,  40, 
41. 

*'  Potter,  the  ventriloquist,"  77. 

Press,  the  great  gland  of  the  civilized 
organism,  148;  one  cannot  keep  up 
with  the,  151. 

Presumptions,  half  our  work  in  life  is  to 
overcome,  284. 

Priestley,  Dr.,  155. 

Professor  at  the  Breakfast  Table,  The, 
306  et  seq. 

Professor,  The,  24,  50,  ~5,  5(i,  Cl,  67,  74, 
89,  92,  94,  95,  98,  111,  113,  119,  143, 
144,  167,  200,  201,  21 T,  265,  267. 

Pulpit  and  pews,  relation  of,  248. 

Punishment,  future,  245  el  seq. 

Purgatory,  doctrine  of,  among  New  Eng- 
land Protestant?,  244. 

Pyramid  and  obelisk,  eternal  types,  101. 

fyx,  a  quartz,  164,  165. 

Quaritch,  Bernard,  115  et  seq. 
Quiucy,  Josiah,  27. 

Ranke,  Leopold,  27. 

Rathbone,  Fred.,  13  et  seq, 

Reading,  as  to  a  course  of,  149  et  seq. 

Realism,  105  et  seq. 

Realists,  the  great  mistake  of  the,  109. 

Repeating,  liability  of,  on  the  part  of  a 

writer,  8 ;  propriety  of,  9. 
Rhymes  are  iron  fetters,  79 ;  cool  off  a 

man's  passion,  280. 
Rhythm  is  a  tether,  79. 
Rogers,  Samuel,  264,  270. 
Rose  and  the  Fern,  The,  118. 
Royce,  Professor,  16, 17. 

Baqui,  Madame,  42. 

Saturn,  the  atmosphere  of,  61 ;  metals 
found  on,  62;  the  great  industrial 
product  of,  63 ;  no  looking-glasses  in, 
64  ;  life  dull  in,  65  ;  dislocation  of  the 
lower  jaw  common  in,  65. 

Saturnians,  the,  62-64. 

Scribblers  feed  on  each  other,  24. 

Seventh  son  of  a  seventh  son,  205. 

Shaftesbury,  Earl  of,  his  description  of 
Henry  Hastings,  27. 

Shovel,  Sir  Cloudesley,  296. 

Sllliman,  Professor,  16. 

Sismondi,  253. 

Smalley,  Mr.,  renders  valuable  aid,  276. 

Spagnoletto,  a  revolting  picture  by,  107. 

Specialists,  medical,  125  et  seq. 

Squinting  brains,  96,  99,  111,  114,  115, 
162, 166,  204,  281,  282. 


Stone-cutter,  Number  Seven's  respect  for 

a,  215.  • 

Struldbrugs,  the,  36. 
Stylographic  pen,  prosaic    but    useful, 

298,299. 
Sugar-bowl,  the  poetical,  75,  93,  117, 

119,285. 

Swift,  Dean,  109. 
Symptoms,  the  cultivation  of,  187. 

Tail,  a  giant's,  154,  155. 

Tartarus,  259. 

Tartarus,  the  Christian,  254. 

Teacups  do  not  hold  so  much  as  coffee- 
cups,  21. 

Tears,  Old  Men's,  30. 

Teetotalism,  tweaking  the  nose  of,  292. 

Telescope  in  the  Mall,  the,  305. 

Tennyson,  Lord,  41. 

Theophrastus,  190. 

Thomas,  Edith,  206. 

Thornton,  Abraham,  13. 

Thought,  a  fine  flow  of,  checked  by  a 
goose-quill,  299. 

Thoughts.,  attrition  of,  11. 

Thread,  of  a  discourse,  lost,  297. 

Threshing  old  straw,  10. 

Time,  threatens  with  the  sand  bag,  30. 

Titles  of  distinction,  American  appetite 
for,  222,  231. 

To  the  Eleven  Ladies,  43. 

Tobacco,  often  harmful,  184. 

Too  Young  for  Love,  202. 

Toothaches,  telepathic,  possible  exist- 
ence of,  17. 

Trees,  the  real,  live  underground,  212 ; 
their  tails,  213. 

"  Trombone,  playing  the,"  with  a  book, 
295 

Tutor,  The,  49,  50,  90,  99,  100,  119,  174, 
175,  177,  179,  217,  241-244,  262,  263, 
265-267,  279,  283-287,  301,  302,  308, 
309. 

Urn,  the,  in  which  The  Teacups  put 
their  unsigned  poems,  75,  93, 117, 119, 
285. 

Vanity  does  not  die  out  of  the  old,  295. 
Viper,  a,  not  so  bad  as  a  child,  249. 
Vocabulary,  stirring  up  a  writer's  un- 

sanctified,  8  ;  the  lover's,  91. 
Voices,  the  quality  of,  178. 

Wagon,  an  old  broken-down,  208  et  seq. 

Walker,  James,  34. 

Warming-pans,  useful  in  the  West  In- 
dies, 231. 

Washington  monument,  the,  102,  103. 

Washington  pie,  186. 

Well-sweep,  the  old-fashioned,  207,  208. 

Wheel,  an  extraordinary  product  of 
genius  and  skill,  208  et  seq. 

Whewell,  Dr.,  164. 

Whitman,  Mr.,  234,  235. 

Whittier,  John  Greenleaf,  41. 

Wife,  preferred  at  the  piano  rather  than 
at  the  dissecting-table,  225. 


INDEX. 


319 


Willia,  N.  P.,  147. 

Women,  ae  book-taster*,  107. 

Writing  by  the  yard,  8. 

Young,  Parson,  49. 

Young  America,  let  him  ran  t  238. 

Young  days,  boasting  about,  32. 


Young  people  prefer  the  thought*  and 
language  of  their  own  generation,  7. 

Youthful  womanhood,  a  garden-bed  of, 
267. 

Zaebdarm,  PhOippoa,  27. 
Zota,  1L7 


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